UYO..
The executive chairman, Ethical and Attitudinal Reorientation Commission (EARCOM) in Akwa Ibom, has discouraged youths in the state to shun politics of violence and bitterness.
Dr Dorothy Thompson gave the charge during a session with newsmen in her office in Uyo, weekend.
She said the charge was imperative in view of the recent fears that some politicians were plotting to incite youths to violence and the abusive clashes between supporters of political parties in the state.
She said that EARCOM under her watch would only support politics of peace, stressing, “It is only in a peaceful atmosphere that development can thrive.
While advising youths to shun social vices including cultism, violence, thuggery, rape, prostitution and drug abuse, Thompson charged youths to seek their creator in the days of their youth, fear God and channel their energies to creative ventures and positive developments so they don’t live in regrets in the future.
“Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them,” Thompson quoted (Ecc.12:1); other scriptures quoted were Prov.14:12 and Prov.16:25
Further quoting from Psalm 34 verse 11-14, she counselled that if youths desire life, and love many days, that they may see good, “they should keep their tongue from evil, refrain from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.”
Thompson commended the governor, whom she said has taken bold measures on ensuring peace so that insecurity that was pervasive around many paths of Nigeria and was encroaching the state would not catch up with the state.
She, therefore, cautioned mischief makers who are bent on fomenting trouble to desist from their heinous plot so we can continue to move forward as a state.
She said those plotting violence want to take the state backward, and such acts would hinder progress.
The EARCOM chairman discouraged individuals and groups planning to use the youths to cause mayhem in the state to desist from the sinister plot, adding that no politician’s ambition is worth the life of anyone. She stressed that politics is not to kill and destroy property but to drive development and imbibe peace.
She commended the people for their support for Gov Udom Emmanuel’s completion agenda, noting that with peace more development would reach the entire citizenry. She charged the youth to emulate the virtues of Emmanuel by jettisoning politics of bitterness and embracing peace.
The EARCOM helmsman observed that Akwa Ibom people are great people with great minds therefore had no need to fight one another because of politics.
She however called on the security agencies to be on alert to deal decisively with persons found to be engaged in acts capable of breaching the peace in the state.
She further appealed to the community leaders not to allow themselves to be used by politicians, and strive to maintain peaceful coexistence in their domains, arguing that the gesture would improve the social and economic wellbeing of the rural dwellers and the state in general.
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