6th July, 2012
By Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers state, southsouth Nigeria, has expressed the willingness of his administration to partner with the Israeli government in developing the Agricultural potentials of the state.
Amaechi stated this when the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, paid him a courtesy visit in government house in Port Harcourt. Olmert had spoken about what he called enormous potentials inherent in Rivers State and expressed confidence in the dynamic leadership of Amaechi to continuously use the state’s potential to benefit the people.
According to him, “the impression that I always get when I come to Africa is that these countries have enormous potential and your country and your state (Rivers) have enormous potential and I think that you happen to have at this time in history also, a dynamic, energetic and capable leadership that can make the dreams of building up the state into a reality of life for the 5.1 million residents in Rivers State that want their lives to be of much higher and greater quality.”
On the prospect of promoting partnership between Rivers State and the State of Israel, Olmert said, “I think that there is a possibility that we will find ways to explore together how to bring in investors, how to develop areas of interest that are of importance to the development of Rivers State in agriculture, in waste management, in water, in building up greenhouses, in growing vegetables that will be of the highest quality as we do in Israel instead of buying them overseas…”
Earlier after an inspection tour of one of the many new primary schools built by the Amaechi administration, Olmert described the school as “wonderful and very impressive”, a view which he also wrote in the school’s visitor’s book.