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By Tamunosisi Gogo Jaja
I read with rapt attention, the recent response by my brother, the immediate past Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside, in what is supposed to be a reaction to an article written by the publisher of Ovation International Magazine, Chief Dele Momodu, titled: ‘My Close Encounter With Governor Nyesom Wike.’ Momodu’s article, according to the content, was a product of an independent observation of the sterling performance of the Rivers State Governor, His Excellency, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, in the last six years as he, Momodu, also did for the former Governor of Rivers State and incumbent Minister of Transportation, Chief Rotimi Amaechi, on the 12th of October, 2013, in a publication he titled ‘On a bus ride with Governor Amaechi.’
Having read his response and those of others, let me put the records straight. It seems that my brother and friend forgot that his political benefactor and the All Progressives Congress (APC) demigod in Rivers State, Amaechi, when he was leaving office in May, 2015, did not write a handover note for the incoming administration. That handover note would have specifically spelt out projects and their statuses that were done by Amaechi. Rather than do a handover note, Amaechi swore that he would love to see where Wike would get money to pay salaries and execute projects in the state. Their shock and anger, therefore, are that having inherited an empty treasury and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has ravaged the global economy, Wike has befuddled his critics by taking projects execution to unimaginable dimension in Rivers State despite the paucity of funds. From recent events and consistent claims by Amaechi’s cronies that every project executed and commissioned by the NEW Rivers Government is either initiated or 80/90 percent completed and paid for by Amaechi, it is now abundantly clear that it was intentional not to leave a handover note so that they can continue this propaganda and lies to the unsuspecting members of the public.
Dakuku said that Wike is busy completing projects initiated by Amaechi like the Ogoni-Andoni-Opobo Unity Road, among others. Yes, the project was initiated by former Governor Peter Odili. Amaechi inherited same for eight years and my brother, Dakuku, left for the House Representatives in 2011 and may not have known the developments concerning the road project. The fact is that Dakuku presided over the redesigning of the Unity Road. Amaechi added no kilometre to that road until Wike came on board and completed the road from where Dr Peter Odili left it.
Rivers people will not forget in a hurry, what happened to the Rainbow Estate at Rainbow Town after about N88 billion was wasted there and then abandoned by Amaechi. The real propaganda was when Amaechi told Rivers people that he was building Justice Adolphus Karibi-Whyte Specialist Hospital where he spent US$39.9 million without a site, but completed the hospital in the sky, having paid this sum to Clinotech Pharmaceutical of Canada for a 15-storey of 1000 bed hospital. The fact is that Wike’s Dr Peter Odili Cancer and Cardiovascular Diagnostic and Treatment Centre has a site, contractor and completion date. The most annoying part of the Amaechi’s propaganda is that he paid for the demolition of all magnificent structures at the old University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) site before carrying out his soil test, and only to discover that the site cannot carry his Specialist Hospital. Like our people will say, ‘lama lost, aboki lost.’ Our money lost and all the structures destroyed. One fact that Rivers people will not forget in a hurry is that between January and February 18, 2015, Amaechi withdrew the sum of N53.9billion compulsory monthly savings from Skye Financial Services without accounting for it. And till date, Rivers people are still begging for answers. The then Government of Rivers State led by Amaechi, has not explained to Rivers people how the proceeds from our common wealth, the gas turbine, disappeared from the coffers of Rivers State Government within a twinkle of an eye. Propaganda or fact?
I wonder how Rivers people feel each time they pass through the Azikiwe Road axis to town with the N150 billion abandoned monorail project after spending about N65 billion. The monorail pillars had arrived the UTC Junction before the initiator realised that the Catholic Cathedral, Presidential Hotel and many more structures were going to be destroyed for his monorail line. Amaechi had to abandon it. Fact or propaganda please?
Now, listen to the mother of all propaganda. Momodu, in that piece published on published on October 12, 2013, said: “The model secondary schools are even more ambitious. We visited a school where all the nearly 1,000 students live on campus and teachers have their own apartments, 24-hour electricity, feeding and so on, unbelievably free. These schools are powerfully equipped with separate state-of-the-art laboratories in various disciplines, including Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Agricultural-Economics. I never saw anything that grandiloquent in my entire schooling career. No one, but a vicious soul would suggest Amaechi has not surpassed himself in the provision of excellent services in education. I would be delighted to see the Federal Ministry of Education replicate Amaechi’s vision nationwide.”
As written by Momodu, the Ovation International publisher was taken to the Ambassador Ine Kurubo Model School, Eleme. Yes, a school built by Amaechi and as a pilot scheme, he engaged some Indians to run the School and a whooping sum of N1 billion paid to the Indians monthly. A conduit! One Billion every month for doing nothing! When some Rivers people raised alarm, the Indians left, abandoning the school and the Amaechi’s Government shut down the school and couldn’t kick-start the other model schools until they left in 2015. Same school was reopened by Governor Wike and run with a little above twenty million naira. Momodu was actually deceived just like the others who were taken on a bus ride to the primary schools built along major roads in Port Harcourt, while the others in the villages were either in the forests or swampy areas where pupils cannot access and abandoned. Propaganda! Truth is that those projects were conceived for political patronage, one thing Governor Wike does not do. Politics is all about attracting projects to your people. As Minister of State, Education, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, attracted the Oil and Gas Polytechnic, Bonny, Faculties of Law and Social Sciences, University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), and grants of N500 million to our tertiary institutions. We beg that if for no other reason, for the pity of Rivers people, Amaechi, as the Minister of Transportation, should complete what he has started, the monorail. Time is no more on his side.
Today, talking about insecurity, Rivers State is not the worst of states in Nigeria. The Federal Government of Nigeria has performed abysmally low in the security of lives and property of Nigerians. For the records, the imposition of curfew in Rivers State was a decision of the State Security Council taken as a stop valve to the influx of unknown gunmen from neighbouring states to attack and kill our security personnel in the state. It was a decision taken to stop the sound of that war drum and song at Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium. I hope those who are pointing to crime index do not have a hand in those heinous crimes. Considering the penchant with which commissioners of police were changed in Rivers State, I want to believe that some people are not happy with the achievements of Governor Wike in the security of our people. Why do we pretend as if we are not aware that the body language of President Buhari chased away foreign investors in Nigeria since 2015? Why blame Governor Wike? Let me inform my readers that the 10 flyovers are facts. The Abonnema Ring Road is a fact, Trans Kalabari Road is a fact, all those projects commissioned by prominent Nigerians are facts and not 3D. Opobo axis of the Ogoni-Andoni-Opobo Unity Road will be commissioned today. It was constructed by Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike. It is a fact and not a propaganda.
Welcome to Opobo of possibilities! One thing no mortal can take away from Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, is that he has written his name in gold. Posterity will be fair to you, Governor Wike.
•Tamunosisi Gogo Jaja, a former House Leader, Rivers State House of Assembly (1999-2007) and former Commissioner for Education, is presently the Commissioner for Water Resources and Rural Development, Rivers State.
