TheCable

I hate to join conversations between Rivers state politicians especially those who have known themselves far more than I know them but I was a bit troubled when I read a recent article by a ranking member of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Dakuku Peterside on ThisDay Newspapers of June 26, 2021 titled “What Wike Did Not Tell His Guest”.

My attention was particularly drawn to the section where Dakuku criticized Nyesom Wike, Governor of Rivers State, for taking credit for projects he did not conceptualise or start such as the Andoni – Opobo – Nkoro Unity Road Project and even accused the Governor of fabricating stories that he was building a road to Opobo.

According to Dakuku, the road was conceived and brought to 26% completion by the Peter Odili Admnistration.

He also stated that the administration of Rotimi Amaechi, who succeeded Peter Odili as Governor, brought the road to 80% completion. And so he found it a ‘pity’ that Wike was taking credit for a road he only completed.

You see, it is mentality like this that has made sure that Nigeria is littered with abandoned projects.

A few days ago, I read a news publication of a road and flyover project that has remained uncompleted for eleven years in Imo State.

Like I always say, nobody does a naming ceremony for a still born child!

Frankly and quite honestly, I believe that the only reason that Dakuku penned down that article was to impress his boss and political leader, Rotimi Amaechi. Nothing else.

I would not have bothered about this if Dakuku was not a ranking member of APC (in Rivers State) and until recently an appointee of an administration that  has continued to take credit for projects conceived and started by previous administrations (Railway Infrastructure Improvement, International Airports etc) even as flagship projects started by previous administrations dating back to the Obasanjo years continue to wallow at different levels of abandonment and neglect.

While Dakuku complains that Nyesom Wike is yet to complete the Andoni – Opobo – Nkoro Unity Road in six years, he should please remember to remind the Buhari administration to complete legacy projects such as East – West and the Lagos -Ibadan road projects which have suffered great neglect in the past six years.

In six years, Dakuku’s political party which currently runs Nigeria, has not been able to complete the long suffering East – West road which connects Dakuku’s Niger Delta with other parts of Nigeria. I wish Dakuku would show more concern for this road.

Port Harcourt Airport continues to remain uncompleted six years after the current administration of President Buhari took office. People like Dakuku should channel their energies to ensuring a project such as this, is completed for the benefit of Rivers people and other travellers.

Continuity is a crucial part of governance and people like Dakuku who should know but willfully misinform the people with recklessly garnished information should be carefully watched.

Rivers State has long suffered from abandoned contracts whether it be at conceptual stage or at advanced stages.

It is a good thing that I am also a Rivers man and a Kalabari man even as I am less on the politics but strong on the development of Rivers State.

Besides, I am someone who would ordinarily not call himself an apostle or political follower of Governor Nyesom Wike but last week, I attended the flag off ceremony for the Trans Kalabari Road (Phase 1), a road project that has suffered great abandonment from conceptual stage to commencement stage dating back to the days of Dr Peter Odili where it was first awarded for about Nine Billion Naira.

In March 2021, the Rivers State Government had announced the award of a contract for the construction of the Phase 1 of the Trans Kalabari Road Project (N13.6 billion).

Unlike the Andoni – Opobo – Nkoro Unity Road which was awarded and started by the Odili administration, a contract for the Trans Kalabari road was also awarded by the Odili administration in 2007 but the contract did not get off the ground.

In December 2012, then Governor Rotimi Amaechi also announced a Twenty One Billion Naira contract for the Trans Kalabari Road and promised to mobilize the contractor to site by January 2013.

https://thenationonlineng.net/rivers-to-spend-n21b-on-trans-kalabari-road-amaechi/

This too did not happen. Yet this was the same administration that spent a whooping Forty Billion Naira on a white elephant project, the Rivers Monorail Project which continues to be an eyesore on Rivers space for the past six years, abandoned much before Rotimi Amaechi left office in May 2015.

Dakuku Peterside was Commissioner for Works when Amaechi awarded a humongous monorail contract to a contractor that had never built a monorail anywhere on earth and had no experience whatsoever with such a project.

Anyway, on June 24, 2021, Nyesom Wike eventually flagged off the Phase I of the Trans Kalabari Road for N13.6 billion with a project duration of 14 months. The project will connect six communities (Omekwe-Ama, Angulama, Krakrama, Minama and others) and will be backed by an irrevocable standing payment order that will ensure that One billion Naira will be paid to the contractor every month.

Now, should I also join Dakuku in stating that it will be wrong for Wike to claim this project because he did not conceive it?

Nobody does a naming ceremony for a still-born child!

Most of all, the fact that government and governance is a continuity should not be a matter of contention for any politician who claims to be a progressive.

Let me digress from the Trans Kalabari Road Project a bit.

The previous day, barely twenty hours before, June 23, 2012, Nyesom Wike flagged off the reclamation of about fifty two hectares of swamp land in Abonnema Town in Akuku Toru Local Government Area with over 50% of the contract sum released to the contractor.

52 hectares of massive swamp land!

So that community people can have access to land for building houses and related infrastructure.

This project has been clamoured for over decades by indigenes of this community.

Should Wike also not take credit for this reclamation project because he did not conceive it even if he completes it?

It may not have been conceived by Wike but his desire and determination to complete it should be encouraged and commended.

Maybe Dele Momodu should visit the Facebook page of another Rivers opposition but fair minded politician who attended the flag-off of the Abonnema Reclamation Project, High Chief Dumo Lulu Briggs and read the kind words that the billionaire and High Chief of Kalabari land had to say of the Governor’s interventions in his community. This is the kind of gracious politics and politicians that we want in Rivers State.

Another strange aspect of Dakuku’s conversation is his complaint about the high rate of unemployment in Rivers State.

Truthfully, there are Rivers people who are very worried about the rate of unemployment and poverty in Rivers State.

At various fora, I have challenged the Rivers State Government to do more in the area of job creation and wealth creation.

I have always believed that a State like Rivers State should be able to use its massive net worth to push for innovative and creative ways to ensure job creation for Rivers people.

However, I am a bit miffed that someone like Dakuku Peterside, a Rivers man who served as Director General of the Nigerian Maritime and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and could not influence jobs and opportunities for Rivers people in those years, would want to attack another politician for the same thing that so many people hold him and his party (APC) in contempt for.

It doesn’t matter that the current Chairman of the Board of NIMASA is also a Rivers man and was Dakuku’s running mate in the 2015 Gubernatorial elections.

Question is, have they used their positions to help the unemployment situation in Rivers State? The answer most Rivers people will give you is a resounding No!

Are they helping the situation with the intense recklessness of their rhetorics in the manner they badmouth Rivers State? Yet again, the answer you will get is a LOUD No!

I am not sure Dakuku can also point out any instance where even the Ministry of Transportation (or any of the many agencies within it such the Nigerian Ports Authority or the Nigerian Railway Corporation) has contributed to solving the growing unemployment crisis in Rivers State.

In another instance, Dakuku raised the issue of insecurity in Rivers State and castigated the Governor’s 8:30 pm to 6 am curfew in the State.

For me as a resident of Rivers State, I find nothing wrong with the curfew especially with the increasing bad blood between the Governor and the secessionist IPOB movement who have long accused the Governor of conniving with the Federal Government in persecuting suspected IPOB members in Rivers State and have even gone as far as declaring a One Hundred Million bounty on his head.

With the spate of violence and reckless killings that we have seen in the South East in recent times, one would not blame Governor Wike for the decision to place a curfew in the State.

I am sure people like Dakuku will be the first to cry foul if reckless and random attacks begin to take place in Rivers State.

Only recently, the Rivers State Government doled out more than Two Hundred Million Naira to the families of police officers who were recently killed by suspected ESN operatives in the state.

Dakuku of all people should know that even as they carry the tag of Chief Security Officers of their states, Governors are basically Chief Logistics Officers for Security Operations in their states as the buck for total security rests in Abuja.

Dakuku is a APC politician. He should visit an APC controlled state like Kaduna State where students and families are kidnapped from schools on a weekly basis and communities ravaged by bandits, rustlers and other criminal gangs. The Abuja – Kaduna road has almost become a no-go area with the spate of abductions and killings yet you do not see PDP politicians in Kaduna State trivialising the insecurity in the state because they want to please and placate their bosses and political leaders!

I hate to defend local politicians in my state but I think Dakuku went too far in his diatribe.

If his intention was to please his boss and political leader, I believe that there are far better ways to do it rather than engage in a dance of hypocrites.

Thank you for your time.

Kerley is president Niger Delta Enterprise Initiative, Port Harcourt

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