How My Potential Once Drew Presidential Attention – Otuaro Inspires Job-seeking Youths

By Bulou Kosin

Delta State Deputy Governor, Deacon Kingsley Otuaro says “innate potential as problem solver” earned him opportunity from then Acting President Yemi Osibanjo to contribute towards resolving Niger Delta challenge, while charging youths to positively commercialise their potentials.

“I just landed in London when I got an invitation from the Presidency then led by Prof. Yemi Osibanjo as Acting President. I called my principal, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa who asked me to rejig my schedule to attend to the call. I eventually flew in to Abuja and sat face to face with decision makers who said they had intelligence I could do something about resolving then raging oil crisis in the Niger Delta”, Otuaro said, adding that “the Presidency’s subsequent backing did a lot to calm down the upheaval”.

Otuaro, who went on to narrate his contributions to rescuing 6 abducted students of a Lagos High School during Governor Ambode‘s tenure, spoke at a youth inspiration conference put together by Aspire Global group in Warri, weekend.

He charged youths to “discover and give positive commercial value to your innate potentials”, stressing that “innate potential was a key to entrepreneurial success”.

Advising the youths to take advantage of Senator Dr Ifeanyi Okowa-led Delta State Government programmes tagged YAGEP, STEP, RYSA among others to express their potentials, Otuaro went on to present earlier cases where problem solving potential led him, to drive home his belief that “the Lord respects your discovery and understanding of your potential and provides opportunities in your path”.

“I grew up in the creeks of the Niger Delta which we know to be challenging environment with poor infrastructure. Going from Secondary School to the University was a challenging experience. Let me inform that you are a product of a socialization process that involves all the people you meet, the books you read, the company: good, bad and ugly that you keep who wrongly or nicely influence you. All of these cumulatively make you”, Otuaro said, stressing that even “before graduation from the Edo State (now Ambrose Alli) University Ekpoma where I studied Law, I discovered that I had an inborn potential as problems solver, just as all of you have different potentials that need to be discovered”.

“Due to my problem-solving potential, I got the confidence of my community’s Governing Council who invited me on several occasions, shortly before I left university, to their meetings while not being a member, to resolve problems. I was given easy ride to becoming subsequent Chairman of the community’s Governing Council for 6 straight years”, Otuaro narrated.

Otuaro informed that his search for a further job rather threw him up as an employer of labour due to his problem solving potential.

“I preferred works not tied to timelines of 8am to 4 or 5pm, so I looked to solve a problem my people suffered in hands of Chevron, a multinational oil giant, whose deep sea wells and operations, we constructively insisted, destroyed our parents’ capacity for fishing livelihood and means to properly train us, their children. We demanded compensation through constructive agitations, approaching the National Assembly Oil and Gas Committee then led by Senator David Briggidi. We succeeded with job slots and contract opportunities which made us become employers of labour”, Otuaro said.

“To the glory of God, it was the problem-solving potential that gave me the opportunity to become the Deputy Governor today”, Otuaro stated, to applauses by the audience.