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By Henry Uche
Former Commissioner for Information and Communications in RivWers State, Ibim Semenitari in this interview monitored on Arise Television, speaks on the political crisis among other issues.
How is life in the jungle given that Governor Sim Fubara said the other day that the jungle has matured concerning Rivers State?
I don’t know which jungle you are talking about because ‘the jungle has matured’ is a Nigerian expression. Rivers is a beautiful state with good sea breeze.
As of the last count, seven commissioners have resigned, the state House of Assembly has two factions and the governor has reported that certain persons have been attacking his supporters, so that doesn’t look like a very peaceful place. What exactly is going on?
Is Rivers State peaceful? Yes, it is because the streets are peaceful and people are going about their businesses. You know there is this thing about the storm in a teacup and life doesn’t begin and end with a handful of people who have political power. That certainly cannot define what is going on in Rivers State because people are doing their business and what they need to do.
A couple of friends may have a disagreement; that certainly cannot define an entire population of 5.6 million people. Having said that, it is the same way people look at Nigeria and ask how you are surviving in Nigeria with all the bad news. For me and many people in Rivers State, when I lived and did business in Lagos State, they were asking me how you are surviving in Lagos.
Look at the statistics that just came out from the National Bureau of Statistics, which show that in terms of safety, the South-South and the South-East are the safest parts of this country. Who would have thought if we didn’t look at the data? I put that aside, about day-to-day living, people are going about their businesses.
Yes, people have resigned from the cabinet and I like the way Nigerians are putting it, saying people and commissioners loyal to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. So, it only makes sense that if you don’t agree with a man, you don’t work with him because you serve at the pleasure of your principal. And if you don’t consider the man your principal, you consider someone else your principal, and then in good conscience, you have no business serving on his cabinet.
You cannot say that I am loyal to John and then I work with Peter, it really doesn’t make sense. If you do have a modicum of integrity, you would only serve the person you believe in his vision because your job as commissioner is to interpret the principles and policies of your principal. Your job as a commissioner is to advise the governor on your sector because you are considered to be able to bring something to the table and then translate the vision of the governor in that sector when you go back to the ministries, departments and agencies.
That is why you are a member of the executive council. So, you take the vision of your governor to your ministry. In my case, it was the Ministry of Information and you say this is the focus of the government about information and communications. And the civil servants look at that vision and if this is the vision of this government, this is how this vision can be interpreted. If you are a commissioner and you do not believe in the principles of the man who is your principal, then you have no business serving under him.
If people choose to resign because they do not believe in the principles of the person who appointed them or they are loyal to someone else, then they are within their rights to resign. And I don’t think that Nigeria or Rivers State should go up in flames because someone left a job he chooses not to do.
We cannot deny the fact that Rivers State is peaceful but it is degenerating in some parts with the governor confirming the attack on his supporters. How are the people of Rivers feeling with this distraction?
Let me take you back to the issue of commissioners resigning and I will share my personal experience. I travelled as commissioner for Information with a team from Rivers State to Pennsylvania, and we were on the delegation of our governor, Rotimi Amaechi. We had a meeting with the governor of Pennsylvania to discuss collaboration between Rivers State and Pennsylvanian State about learning how to deal with road construction.
When we got to that meeting, the two governors had a handshake and agreed that this was something they wanted to do and said they would leave it for their people to go ahead with the conversation. At the meeting were commissioners from Rivers State and on the other side was only the Secretary of Transportation for Pennsylvanian State, who is commissioner equivalent. Every other person on that panel was a civil servant. The Secretary of Transportation said welcome and we are glad we will be collaborating and we will just leave it for the bureaucrats to sort it out and he left the room.
We had only one or two people from the Ministry of Transportation, so we had to return because of the questions the bureaucrats were asking; only our bureaucrats could have answered them. But that left one strong impression on my mind. So, people from the Ministry of Works had to go back. There is a reason the permanent secretary is the chairman of the ministry’s tenders board. It is because the people who run the ministry are the bureaucrats.
I told you what the commissioner’s role is, which is to say this is what the governor wants to do in this area. The people who break it down are the bureaucrats. It is the bureaucrats that run government. For instance, if you have a lawyer who is the commissioner for Agriculture, the person who is going to come out with the agricultural processes is the person in the ministry. He will just interpret the governor’s vision.
So, the ministries are running fine and the people of Rivers State are also running fine because people are being promoted and salaries are being paid. Promotions that have not happened for over eight years have happened. This commissioning going on the state are the things the governor started and completed.
If you go to state institutions, they are functioning well. Would it be nice to have all commissioners there? Yes! Is there a bit of discomfort arising from some of the crisis? Of course, but a lot of it is more political than about the bureaucracy because the bureaucracy is running. Do we have the attack the governor talked about? Yes!
What do you think that your father as a former deputy governor of the state would have said in this entire crisis in Rivers State?
Sometimes you don’t want to sound like you are taking sides, yet it is important but I just want to speak like a human being. You are the governor of a state and there can only be one governor at a time. It would be crazy if we had to have three governors because that is not what our constitution says. So, if there is one governor, let the governor be. That is my position.
That would be the position of any right-thinking person because we heard people say the same thing. There is one president at a time and you may have fantastic ideas as to what the president should do but you are not the president. So, allow the president to fail or do well; thankfully there are instruments to determine if that president stays or not.
But in a situation where you want to treat someone with ignominy, I don’t think that is fair. Is it fair to the people of Rivers State that they are being compiled because of the interest of the tiny percentage of the population? It is embarrassing and yet this is a beautiful state with peaceful people. An average Rivers person is peaceful.
Is it a fair narrative to Mr. Nyesom Wike that he is the one causing all of these?
I don’t know but you are listening and you are seeing what is happening. You just said commissioners are loyal to the FCT minister. If I appoint you as commissioner, your loyalty should be to me because you serve at my pleasure. When the media people write, they say lawmakers loyal to the FCT minister but they were elected by Rivers people to serve their constituencies. So, if a name keeps coming up in the conversation, then rightly or wrongly, you might find people saying that this is the man causing the trouble.
What is Governor Fubara presenting to the people of Rivers State as proof of his stewardship so far?
I can’t claim to speak for the government but I can at least tell you the things I know that have happened. About two or three weeks ago, 3,992 people received micro credits and loans. Nano-businesses, micro-businesses, small businesses and medium businesses benefited from these credits and loans and 52 per cent of that number were women and 48 per cent were men.
A thousand doctors have been employed because there is a gap with regard to doctors with more employment underway. Civil servants that have been promoted in the last 10 years have been promoted and that is a plus. For local government staff who have not been promoted, some of the three steps further promoted. 49 projects started by the last administration have been paid for and completed with more payments ongoing.
Unfortunately, we are dealing with a governor who probably just thinks I should do my job because the reason the people elected him is to do these things. But I guess the Nigerian thing is that when a governor commissions a road, we will go and congratulate him for giving us a road but it is our money he used in constructing the road. You are giving us the road we elected you to give us, you are building the school we elected you to build and you are giving us the hospitals that we asked you to come and give us.
You promised us that you would give us those things and you asked for our votes, we gave you the votes. And I think that if we begin to demand and ask those questions and say to the people we elect it is our right and not a favour. And that is the perspective I think Governor Fubara appeals to have because he says this is what we are supposed to be doing. So, in terms of work done, the roads being commissioned in these 20 days are roads this governor started and completed.
The schools that they have rebuilt and the hospitals they have rebuilt, he doesn’t want to include them because he says we are supposed to do it anyway. The only road he didn’t start is the Tema Road, which he took over and 23 per cent of that was paid for before he came. He paid the balance.
