By Taritein Boco
It is a very dangerous trend when legitimate criticism of governance is dismissed with the “if you don’t like it, leave our State” mentality. History shows that scapegoating non-indigenes never solves economic or governance challenges, it only shields political leaders from accountability.
The reality is that Bayelsa’s economy is sustained not just by government spending, but by thousands of entrepreneurs, traders, transporters, and investors, many of whom are non-indigenes. They generate jobs, pay taxes, drive commerce, and keep money circulating within the local economy.
Let us take the transport sector for example, how many Bayelsans drive Keke and buses, or even own them? Yet they contribute over N1b conservatively to Government as internally generated revenue.
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Let us look at this very conservative estimate: assuming we have about five (5) thousand Keke operating in Yenagoa alone, they pay between N200-N500 daily for operating tickets. Let’s take the lower limit of N200 per day for 5,000 Keke in a 6-day week, this will give government about N288m every year.
This is just for 5,000 Keke operating in Yenagoa. Note that over 20,000 Keke are registered in the state. The statewide picture therefore, If we scale this up to look at the 20,000 registered Keke across the entire state, even with a conservative 70% daily active rate (14,000 Keke) paying just N200, the annual revenue potential jumps to over N870m. This only for tricycle.
Besides civil service salaries and overhead of the political structure (Executive and Legislature) which is about 25-40% of monthly FAAC allocation, depending on what is received, the balance 60-75% of the monthly allocation goes to major contractors who at best retain 20% in circulation through staff salaries while 80% is repatriated out of the state. Effectively therefore, it is the small businesses of the private sector which largely is dominated by non-indigenes that drive the Bayelsa economy.
So when public discourse becomes an “indigene vs. non-indigene” debate, attention shifts away from the real issues: governance, public service delivery, economic diversification, and responsible use of public resources. Sadly, this debate is often deliberately orchestrated by those who mismanage our common wealth to distract us from asking questions. Beneficiaries of accountability evading leaders make it their duty to defend and attack ppl who ask genuine questions about the use of our common wealth, and create these distractive narratives.
Economic progress is not determined by ethnic identity or place of origin. It is determined by policies, leadership, and execution. States prosper when they attract talent, investment, and ideas, not when they push them away. Progressive nations across the world deliberately create migration policies to attract talents and investors.
The question should never be “Who is speaking?” but “Is what they are saying true, and how do we fix it?”
