2019 International Trade Fair is to prove PH is safe for business again - Mike Elechi
Insecurity:
Businesses may have continued fleeing from Rivers State believing the place is insecure for operations. The decision of the Dangote Group to overlook Rivers State to locate their multi-billion Dollar refinery and petrochemicals outfits is usually used as the case in hand.
Now, the over 2000 members of the Organised Private Sector (OPS) in the Garden City have vowed to prove that PH is a good place for business and that insecurity is not the only name for the city.
Thus, the 2019 International Trade Fair has been dedicated to proving this point. Several international business groups have been courted to show up. The enthusiasm is high and the preparations seem equally on high.
The Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (PHCCIMA), now led by an international businessman and naturalized Nigerian who is a chief, Nabil Saleh ( CEO of M-saleh and other businesses), seemed to carefully handpick a media manager and administrator now a modern mega-farmer, Mike Elechi, to spearhead this new narrative.
The Knight and chief, who is known to have turned around the Peter Odili image in the then governor’s second tenure when he became the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information which led to the explosion of private newspapers in the state from one to 14 and turning Port Harcourt into a news headquarter after Lagos and Abuja, has continued to build collaborations and partnerships to rescue the image of Port Harcourt using the international trade fair as a kick-off.
Elechi and his team including Uche Onochie, Maraizu Uche and Ifeoma Okeke, have toured broadcast media houses. The team followed up with a media interactive session to plot ways to deliver the trade fair successfully and use it to show to the world that safety is back to PH. The argument of the team is that though some sparks of crime may flare up in the oil city but that same or even more is also happening in Lagos and other cities.
Elechi highlighted some of the strategic actions being lined up to make the upcoming international trade show a huge security success; one being the relocation of the fair to Obi Wali International Conference/cultural Centre located between two military installations (Bori Camp being headquarters of 6 Division of the Nigerian Army, and Nigeria Air Force headquarters) on Aba Road. The other is to keep away anyone who has no business at the fair.
For this, major companies have been lined up to participate with innovative products that may excite the PH and South-south audience. .
Thus, it is not only for the media to say something good and new but to fid what is good and new to dwell on all through the two weeks beginning from December 6 to 20, 2019.
Elechi stated: “For this year’s edition, there is need or collaborations and partnerships especially with media houses in Port Harcourt. There is a reason for this. Security scares business people away from Port Harcourt, and it is bad press that caused it. Port Harcourt is not the worst.
“The 2019 PH International Trade Fair is here to change the narrative and put a stop to de-marketing of Rivers State. The city is for all of us; if the city dies, we all die. So, the city now generates good news and let the media give it out.
“Rivers State is good now. Tension has reduced because elections are over. Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Enugu are the four approved international trade fairs in Nigeria. There are over 2000 business in the OPS (organised private sector) in Port Harcourt and they must take the lead. The Trade Fair is our flagship event each year.
“PH is safe again for business and November 7, 2019, is official unveiling. Businesses were leaving PH and the city was dieing, but things have changed. There is need for strategic partnerships to sustain the new steam”.
The media gurus and the trade fair committee deliberated on ways of making this a reality.