By Paulinus Nsirim
Recently at the funeral of an eminent Jurist, Justice Adolphus
Karibi-Whyte, Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi described himself
as the “Best Governor” Rivers State has produced.
Amaechi, known for playing to the gallery also used the occasion to make
uncomplimentary remarks about politics and development in the State.
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo responded to Amaechi by describing
his predecessor’s tenure as a legacy of white elephant projects.
Governor Wike, who gave his response during a live television interview
programme, on Monday, September 28th, was reacting to comments made by
the Minister who cast aspersions on the security and development of
Rivers State under the Wike administration.
Governor Wike, who listed the Justice Karibi Whyte Hospital and Monorail
Project as Amaechi’s “Legacies” said that his predecessor, Rotimi
Amaechi was more interested in awarding political projects to boost his
personal ego than delivering services to Rivers people.
Rivers watchers are aware of the fact that for the past five years since
he assumed office as the number one citizen of Rivers State, Governor
Wike has exhibited great restraint and admirable political maturity in
refraining from joining issues with his predecessor. He has opted to
concentrate on delivering on the promises he made to the Rivers people,
which fundamentally is to deliver good governance and legacy
infrastructural projects to the people.
With this mandate in mind, he simply hit the ground running from May 29,
2015 and since then, his administration has been a beehive of nonstop
administrative realignments, project implementation, and the completion
of some critical yet abandoned people-oriented initiatives, from
operation zero potholes to the reopening of the Courts shut down for
over two years and the reinstatement of lecturers, payment of backlog of
pensions, assembling a committed and functional cabinet and addressing
the critical needs of the people.
It was little wonder therefore that two years into his administration,
Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, during one of his working visits to
Rivers State christened him “Mr Projects” in recognition of the amazing
transformation that the State witnessed in so short a period.
Those who closely followed and monitored the political trajectory of the
State will vividly recall the turbulent electoral processes that
defined the elections of 2015 and the casualties that emerged when the
dust had settled. They will also remember that the opposition was
relentless in its obsession to bring down the Wike administration from
the first day up till the very last day before the 2019 elections when a
Supreme Court judgment finally cleared Governor Wike and declared him
eligible to contest for his re-election.
In the midst of all these, the opposition had embarked on a deceitfully
salubrious image laundering merry go round in the media, celebrating all
the failed or abandoned projects of the past administration and urging
with a sinister motive for the rehabilitation of these white elephant
projects while vilifying the Wike administration, even without coming
clean to Rivers people as to why these paper monuments cannot be
rehabilitated in a hurry.
Governor Wike mindful of the distractive energy that would be
dissipated in joining issues with the opposition and careful not to be
snared in the murky agenda of washing the dirty linen of Rivers State in
the public space, refrained with a stoic, unshakable resolve not to call
out certain persons who defrauded Rivers State or expose the rotten
underbelly of the past administration’s glossy outer veneer.
But there is always a limit to the elasticity of a patient man’s
resolve. When the Minister for Transportation loquaciously bad-mouthed
the Wike administration, with his usual lamentations on its security and
infrastructural scorecard, little did he realize that finally, he had
crossed that red line limit.
Without mincing words, Governor Wike laid in on his predecessor, with
the direct, honest, fearless forthrightness for which he has become
synonymous and greatly admired not only in the State but across the
country.
Governor Wike, addressing a global audience which had fervently
anticipated his well-advertised interview on the continental Television
network, declared that a project like the Justice Karibi Whyte Hospital
was a scam because it gulped $39.9 Million on paper as there is nothing
to show on the ground at the proposed site.
It was one of the biggest frauds in the history of governance both in
Nigeria and internationally as the so-called Canadian foreign partners,
eventually claimed that they did not have the funds to meet up their own
partnership counterpart funding after Rivers State had fully and
hurriedly paid up the non-refundable whopping $39.9 Million.
Suffice it to say that a Judicial Commission of Inquiry after a
comprehensive and exhaustive investigation, indicted the Rotimi Amaechi
administration for fraud in its report, but the like the saying goes,
those who go to equity must come with clean hands and so they quickly
ran to the courts they had shut down for two years with the intention of
getting a perpetual injunction to nullify the probe and declare the
judicial panel illegal to investigate the matter.
Needless to say that they failed first at the lower court, then failed
again at the Court of Appeal and now they are at the Supreme Court and
whether they like it or not, justice will surely be done and Rivers’
money will be coughed out.
Not done with the expose and reeling out figures with definitive
authority, Governor Wike stated that the sum of N65 billion was spent on
the 1.2 kilometers Monorail Project which were conceived as another
white elephant project and conduit pipe to milk Rivers resources, adding
that he was stunned when an evaluation to complete the project, provided
a figure that would have conveniently built more infrastructure across
the State.
In a no holds barred revelation, Governor Wike said most of such
political projects existed either on the pages of Newspapers or were
used to settle political allies. Amaechi and his political allies after
siphoning huge sums of money from the State left behind uncompleted
projects.
This is what Governor Wike said: “Amaechi does not have the moral ground
to talk about development in the State when he wasted so many financial
resources on non-existing projects. Go round the State, you will never
see anything that looks like Justice Karibi -Whyte Hospital. It is a
scam that never existed.
“Again, tell me what is the traffic along Azikwe Road that a 1.2
kilometers Monorail Project will be awarded for over 65 Billion Naira.
When I came into office, I was told that it will cost about 30 Billion
Naira to complete that project. If I have such money, I will build more
infrastructure across the State.
“His Economic Advisory Council led by Prof. Nimi Briggs published a
Report. The records covered the activities of his administration from
2007 to 2014. On education, the council recorded that 485 primary
schools were proposed for construction. Some existing old schools were
demolished when they required rehabilitation.
“Work actually started on 478 schools but only 116 schools were
completed across the State. Amaechi also awarded 15 Modern Secondary
Schools for 15 Local Government Areas at over Four Billion Naira each.
Only the Ambassador Nne Krukrubo School in Eleme Local Government was
completed and functional before he left office. So calculate the
remaining 14 at N4billion each and you will know how much of Rivers
money was wasted,” Governor Wike stated.
The fact that there are foremost schools in Rivers State that had
produced prominent Nigerians in the State that should have been
rehabilitated but Amaechi abandoned them to embark on the abandoned
white elephant projects, some of them even located in areas with little
or no population of school-age children or in other places like Opobo
town, where the structure had already been swallowed by water, will make
every discerning mind angry.
This has prompted Governor Wike to commence the rehabilitation of
renowned schools across the State and speaking during an inspection tour
of rehabilitation work going on at Government Comprehensive Secondary
School and Enitona High School both in Port Harcourt, Governor Wike
reiterated his commitment to upgrading facilities in schools that have
contributed in molding prominent personalities and made the state
famous, educationally.
He also expressed sadness over the wastage of funds by the previous
administration in building new schools far away from where a large
number of people reside while it abandoned structures of the old
schools.
He said: “I feel so sad that these schools are in such a bad state. They
are schools that have made the state proud. I don’t know why the
government will build new schools instead of putting the old schools in
a position where they can be very conducive for students.
“You know those who have made names in the Port Harcourt; some of them
attended these old schools. I have promised that we will do all we can
to bring back the schools to what they used to be. I won’t allow the
schools to die. We must continue to retain the name. We will also look
at the schools that missionaries have taken over like the Okrika Grammar
School. We will invite the missionaries to discuss the modalities,” he
added.
Those who have watched the Governor Wike administration with a keen
sense of objective appraisal will also concur that with the commencement
of his second tenure, the Rivers State Governor has set in motion a
brilliant economic agenda to concession all the government-owned farms
and assets which had totally become moribund even before the end of the
tenure of the last administration. Rivers watchers will recall that
die-hard Amaechi attack dogs and apologists had cried and wailed to the
high heavens that Governor Wike had deliberately refused to revive these
projects which their administrative ineptitude and ignorance of
partnership conditionalities compelled the last administration to
abandon, thus leaving investors to their fate.
Governor Wike had been very firm about not exposing the suffocating
conditions under which some of these investors were engaged, preferring
instead to take time and explore the best ways to resuscitate these
assets and deploy them maximally for the benefit of the State.
When the announcement to concession them to willing and capable
investors was released, most of these vociferous critics were suddenly
and uncharacteristically very quiet, which was surprising given that
what they had been clamouring for had actually been adopted, or was
there more to their hue and cry than meets the ordinary eye?
The Rivers State Cassava Processing Plant was first on stream on the
concession conveyor belt and a list of other state-owned farms and
assets had been made public before the outbreak of Covid-19 temporarily
truncated the process which had really gathered impressive momentum.
Recently too, Governor Wike inaugurated a Seven-man Committee, chaired
by the State Deputy Governor, Dr. Ipalibo Harry Banigo to revitalise
some dormant Health Institutions in the State.
The Prof. Kelsey Harrison Hospital, which had been one of the
institutions the naysayers were harassing Governor Wike to rehabilitate
was number one on the list, but what the opposition critics did not tell
Rivers people was that the hospital has not been operational because of
litigation over the agreement between International Trauma and Critical
Care Centre Limited (ITCC) and the Rivers State Government, which
Governor Wike inherited.
The Committee set up by the State Executive Council made fundamental
recommendations and decided to ensure they are implemented immediately
without bureaucracy and thus the Hospital will soon become operational
once again. These are some of the bottlenecks the Wike administration
was saddled with when it assumed office but the past administration has
been economical with the truth and instead is busy instigating Rivers
people and fomenting all manner of distractions to mask the real truth
of the fraud and underhand practices that went down in the last
administration.
Governor Wike has been very diplomatic and circumspect in protecting
the image and reputation of the State by holding back on exposing the
gross atrocities and monumental fraud that hallmarked the past
administration.
His driving motivation has been to rebuild the State and position her
for the challenges of the future. He has already pledged that he will
not leave any uncompleted project when his tenure is over but, it is
also important to set the records straight once in a while as he did
during the Television interview.
Governor Wike is not a self-seeking leader who parades himself as one
that knows it all like some leaders who will betray their State for
personal gains. He is a team player with a benevolent spirit and a
generous heart, who will certainly not be distracted by anybody and this
is one fact which his critics know very well. No matter how much they
try he remains resolute to make the State a Destination of Choice.
Nsirim is the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Rivers
State