Bayelsa State governor, Seriake Dickson has said, unknown to many Nigerians, the change mantra of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC), was pioneered by him.

According him, this happened when the state was in a complete state of ruins which were allegedly perpetrated by his predecessor, Mr Timipre Sylva.

Dickson stated this in Yenagoa, at the opening ceremony of the 11th edition of All Nigerian Editors Conference (ANEC), organised by the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) with the theme: Nigeria the change we need: Role of the Editor..

He said, “I enjoin you to rise up as we fashion out a new national value that will bring a new Nigeria which has already started. Since I became governor, we have delivered change, even the change mantra started in Bayelsa State; I’m the original change governor. The change started from Bayelsa when we stopped young people from being killed on the streets of Yenagoa. On the day that I declared interest to run for governor, five innocent youths were shot dead just to scare me.

“Look at the quality of roads we have; we want to be the new Dubai of Africa. Somebody was here for five years, killings increased. Apart from the economy and security, we must also build national consensus in education. We’ve invested N23 billion in building educational infrastructures in the last three years. We have done some changes in the eduction sector,” he siad.

The governor also frowned against the politicisation of the war against terrorism in the country.