Issues
Tam-George And The Desperate Treachery Of An APC Agent
It goes without saying that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is the den of unrepentant liars and treacherous fellows. A home for persons without conscience and love for their people.
It may sound harsh, but once a man associates with the APC, he loses compassion, patriotism and development instincts. The reason for this disappointing fall, especially for those from the South-South and South-East, is obvious.
Once, you join the APC from the South-South or South-East, the party places a horrendous burden on you. They insist that you spew nonsense and justify the marginalisation of your people. You are forced to lose your sense of justice.
This has been the case of Adams Oshiomhole, Festus Keyamo, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, Joe Igbokwe, Cairo Ojuigo, Chris Ngige and a host of others. As APC leaders, all they have done is to work against the South-South and South-East, offering justification for the failures of the APC Federal Government. They attract nothing to their geo-political zones.
Austin Tam-George is one of such APC goons. He believes that he can only climb the rotten APC ladder by destroying his people in Rivers State. His warped expectation is that he would be elevated on the strength of the lies and misinformation he spews on Rivers State.
Last week, Tam-George, the former Commissioner for Information and Communications, Rivers State, claimed that there were no employment opportunities in Rivers State. This weekend, the same man comes forward to say that 5000 direct jobs and 200,000 indirect jobs would be lost upon the planned relocation of the Supply Base of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) from the Oil and Gas Free Zone, Onne, Rivers State to Lagos.
As expected, Tam-George attempted to use this dispute between SNEPCo and other stakeholders to score cheap political points, despite the fact that he wrote that the Rivers State Government through different channels and engagement routes, worked to resolve the challenge.
The sad aspect of this new APC convert is the pedestrian lies contained in his recent post. First, he claimed that Rivers State Government under the leadership of Governor Wike lacks a functional Ministry of Commerce and Industry. If Tam-George lost his job as a commissioner, did he also lose his sense of responsible communication?
Tam-George’s stint in government, an opportunity availed him by Governor Wike, ought to have exposed him to the delicate workings of government. He ought to have appreciated the quantum of investments in place by Governor Wike to ensure a robust economy and functional relationship with all oil majors, Shell inclusive. But nobody expects rational reasoning from Tam-George as he is struggling to survive.
Contrary to the blatant lie circulated by Tam-George in his latest piece, Rivers State has a functional Ministry of Commerce and Industry with Mrs Nancy Nwankwo as the commissioner.
As we speak, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is working with other leaders to distribute funds for the Rivers State Government’s Empowerment Programme for Traders and Young Entrepreneurs. Funds will reach the participants after the burial of the state Attorney-General this weekend
Under this empowerment programme, the Rivers State Government through the Ministry of Commerce and Industry will empower traders and young entrepreneurs as follows:
Group 1: Spare Parts Dealers, Patent Medicine Sellers, Hair Stylists, Supermarket Proprietors, Fashion Designers will access #500,000 – #2,000,000.
Group 2: Restaurant Owners, Beer Parlour Owners etc will access #500,000 – #1,000,000.
Group 3: Artisans will access #300,000
Group 4:Food Vendors, Petty Traders will access #50,000 – #200,000 – #1,000,000 etc.
Outside the above, Governor Wike is accomplishing the job creation aspects of the New Vision Development Blueprint. Aside hundreds of thousands of jobs created by the private sector through policies of the Rivers State Government, Governor Wike has approved the employment of 14,000 teachers and 7,000 civil servants. The State Government is also recruiting operatives for the Rivers State Neighbourhood Safety Corps Agency.
It is disheartening that Tam-George does not understand the politics of relocation, which has been one of the key advocacies of Governor Wike. All major international oil companies extract oil in the Niger Delta, but seek excuses to relocate to Lagos for administrative purposes.
For this reason, patriotic leaders of the South-South made presentations to the failed APC Federal Government to ensure the relocation of all oil majors to the region.
During his rounds to the South-South, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo directed all oil majors to relocate to the region.
Governor Wike facilitated a meeting of South-South and South-East Governors at the Government House, Port Harcourt where the governors issued a communique urging the failed APC Federal Government to implement the directive of the Presidency.
However in August, 2018, The Guardian Newspaper reported that Presidency sources said that no headquarters relocation order was made to oil companies. This volte-face by the failed APC Federal Government was a shocker to industry watchers who believe that the Federal Government is instigating the oil companies to sabotage the Niger Delta for political reasons.
Even from the report that Tam-George analysed, the Rivers State Government is working round the clock to ensure a reversal of the decision by SNEPCo.
The report stated: “Sources at the meeting said both the DSS and the Rivers State Government are concerned about the long-term security implication for the state should the relocation to Lagos be executed.”
On the issue of security, Rivers State remains one of the safest locations in the country. This has to be reiterated for Tam-George to understand that propaganda can’t change the reality . The APC Federal Government has destroyed the security architecture of the country and it is unwise for APC apologists to attempt to place the burden of responsibility elsewhere.
Tam-George’s struggle for attention is becoming too treacherous. He is refusing to see the bigger picture in the fight to eke out a living from an anti-people party .
These men who have been initiated into APC’s occult of retrogression, do nothing but defend the economic sabotage of their own people. Tam-George’s love for the treachery of his people to earn a place on APC’s table of infamy is a sad development.
But Tam-George must realise that we are battle ready. We have the presence of mind to put out the truth each time APC pays the erstwhile information commissioner to lie against a God-ordained administration. We are heading to 2019, strictly on the platform of Governor Wike’s outstanding performance.
Nwakaudu is Special Assistant to Rivers State Governor on Electronic Media.
Simeon Nwakaudu
Issues
Wike: Destroying Rivers State And PDP
This is an open letter to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Wike.
Your Excellency,
Sir, ordinarily, I would not be writing an open letter to you, but like a wise man once said, “Silence would be Treason.” So I prefer to stay alive than face the consequences of silence in the face of crime. With each passing day, and as the socio-political tides continue to turn, it has become more pertinent that more people speak up in a concerted MANNER to prevent the death of our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as we appear to be, in the words of W. B. Yeats, “turning and turning in the widening gyre” heading for an end where the falcon will no longer hear the falconer
It is unfortunate that since losing control of the Federal Government, with the loss of President Goodluck Jonathan at the poll in 2015, our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has continued on a downward spiral. It is much more painful, that where it is expected that leaders within the party should rise to the challenge and put an end to this decline of our great party, some have instead taken up roles as its undertaker.
It will be hypocritical to claim aloofness to what I believe is your grouse with the PDP and I am not a hypocrite. It will be uncharitable on my part to discountenance the role you have played in strengthening the PDP from 2015 up until the last Presidential primaries of the party. It is my belief that your grouse against certain members of the party who you perceived worked against the party and abandoned it in 2015 and then came around much later to take control of the party, is justified. Also know that your decision to remain in the Party and stifle its progress on the other hand, as a sort of payback, stands condemned. For a man of your pedigree and stature, it is a dishonorable act, highly dishonorable and stands as testimony against all you claim to stand for.
At least, it can be argued that those who you hold this grudge against, abandoned the party completely and did not sit back while actively working to destroy it from within. But what then can be the argument on your own part, seeing that those you are currently working with against your party are the same people who set in motion, and executed surgically, the plans that not only ended our Party’s leadership at the centre, but ended up dislodging the first Niger Deltan to occupy Aso Rock as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Is this not akin to “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face?” That will be worse than folly. Let us not throw away the baby with the bath water because we do not like the soap used in bathing the baby. It will be a grave mistake.
Honourable Minister, sir, it is rather unfortunate that of all people, you have also decided to play the role of an undertaker not only for our party, but for our dear Rivers State.
I will like to take you down memory lane a little. Let me remind you of your emergence as Guber candidate of the PDP in Rivers State, against all fairness and justice in 2014. You will remember that despite the reality being that you as an Ikwerre man was poised to replace a fellow Ikwerre man in Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in our multiethnic state, Rivers people overwhelmingly stood by you and pushed for your emergence as Executive Governor of Rivers State in 2015. I dare say that your popularity in the entire Niger Delta region was at an all-time high at this point.
I want you to understand why you were loved across board leading to your eventual emergence as Governor of Rivers State in 2015; it was because when it looked like all were against the second term ambitions of the first Niger Delta man to emerge as President of Nigeria, you became not just a pillar but a beacon of resistance by standing for Goodluck Jonathan. Rivers people, as grateful and rewarding as they can be, paid you back by ensuring your electoral victory against the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC) led by your predecessor. On your emergence, where there were second term Governors in the region, you, a first term Governor, was seen by the people as not just the leader of the PDP, but the leader of the entire Niger Delta region. You earned it, and no one could dispute it.
In 2019, when your re-election bid was being challenged ferociously, Rivers people once again stood solidly behind you. Many were killed in the process of defending your votes. Do you remember Dr. Ferry Gberegbe that was shot and killed while trying to protect your votes in Khana Local Government Area? There are many more unnamed and unrecognised sons and daughters of Rivers State who sacrificed their lives so that you could emerge as a second term Governor of Rivers State.
In 2022/23, Honourable Minister, you oversaw a party primary across board that saw some candidates imprisoned and internal party democracy jettisoned for your wishes, leading to the emergence of flag bearers of our party all singlehandedly picked by you. You have on more than one occasion publicly stated that you paid for all their forms. Even those shortchanged in this process licked their wounds and continued to play their roles as party members to ensure the success of the party at all levels. In what will go down as one of the most keenly contested elections in recent Rivers history, with formidable candidates like Senator Magnus Abe of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Mr Tonye Cole of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the vibrant youth driven Labour Party (LP), PDP emerged victorious across board except for Phalga Constituency 1 that was lost to the Labour Party. (Not that you did not loose in some other LGA’s but let’s stick to the official figures declared by INEC).
It begs the question, why then do you want to burn down Rivers State, when everyone who now holds political office emerged through a process designed and endorsed by you? Is it that you do not care about Rivers people and you are all about yourself? If so, I am forced to believe that those around you are not telling you the truth. The truth being that in a state where your words were law; where houses and businesses could be demolished or closed down without any recourse to legalities, where Executive Orders could be deployed to stifle the opposition, that your popularity is now at an all-time low. Probably because they are afraid of you, or of losing the benefits they gain from you, they fail to tell you that what you might perceive as a battle against your successor, has slowly but gradually degenerating into a battle against Rivers State and Rivers people. You know, there is a popular saying that, a man can cook for the community and the community will finish the food, but when a community decides to cook for one man, the reverse is the case.
LEAVE FUBARA ALONE
You have gone on and on about being betrayed by Governor Siminalayi Fubara. You point fingers forgetting that some of those same fingers quick to spot betrayals point straight back at you. It is not Governor Fubara that has betrayed the PDP by working against it in the just concluded General Election, and working with the opposition at the State and Federal level to destabilise the party. It is you, Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that betrayed Rivers people by instigating a political crisis with propensity to escalate ethnic tensions in Rivers State. It is you Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that has declared himself God over all in Rivers State and has no qualms with burning the state to the ground to prove a point. It is you Honourable Minister. It is you Honourable Minister who told the world that the APC was a cancer and you can never support a cancerous party. It is you Honourable Minister who ended up facilitating the emergence of the same “cancerous” APC that has accelerated the economic decline of this country and further impoverished our people with no remorse. All so you can be a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory? The lack of self awareness is gobsmacking.
Some days back I came across a video where you talked about death and how you do not cry when you hear about the death of some people because you have no idea what might have caused it considering many a politician swear “over dead bodies” and still go back on their words. Those words made me think, and I could see the reason behind them. You see, in chosing to be God in the affairs of Rivers people, you have closed your eyes and ears to reason; you see nothing and hear nothing that can cause you to rethink on the path you have chosen. In your quest to “show Fubara” you have unwittingly united a vast majority of Rivers people behind him, so much that even those who despised him because of you, now like or love him, because of you too. In your scheming, I will advise you not to forget that “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
Note that the war which you have or are waging against Governor Fubara, has gone beyond being merely political as you might see in your minds eye. It is now one that, fortunately for some and unfortunately for others, has evolved into a war against Rivers people. It is good to point out that no one has taken a stand against Rivers people and won. No one has gone against God and won. In your defiant characteristic manner, it will be unfortunate if you believe your own hubris and that of those around you on the possibility of you being the first to successfully go against Rivers people. It will be a needless gamble; one where if you win you create more enemies for yourself than you can withstand on your political journey, and if you lose, your legacy becomes an inglorious and irredeemable one in Rivers State, the Niger Delta, and Nigeria at large. For your sake as regards posterity, it is my greatest wish that you have a moment of sobriety and a deep reflection and introspection on this path you have chosen.
Honourable Minister, sir, what is left of your legacy is on the brink of being completely desecrated and relegated to the dustbin of our political history, and it will be a sad end to what I will say has been a wonderful political career that many can only dream of. The ball is in your court, and may God Almighty have mercy on us all and forgive us for our shortcomings.
Gabriel Baritulem Pidomson
Dr Pidomson is former Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt and former member, Rivers State House of Assembly.
Issues
Investing In Nyesom Wike: A Story Of Dedication, Sacrifice And Ultimate Loss
In 2015, I made a conscious decision to invest my financial resources, my time, and energy into supporting Nyesom Wike’s gubernatorial campaign. I poured my heart and soul into ensuring Nyesom Wike emerged victorious even at the risk of my personal safety.
Again in 2019, I doubled down on my commitment. I invested a significant amount of money to procure campaign outfits for all twenty-three Local Governments Areas of Rivers State. I spared no expense in supplementing Wike’s election efforts in my own local government, and once again putting myself at great risk to safeguard the fairness and transparency of the electoral process.
However, despite my unwavering loyalty and sacrifices, I found myself abandoned and forgotten by Wike. Throughout his eight-year tenure, he failed to acknowledge my contributions or fulfill his promises and agreements. Even as a former Deputy Governor, Wike denied me my severance benefit.
My investment in Wike’s governorship was not just financial – it was a commitment of passion, dedication, and belief in a better future for Rivers State. Yet, his leadership style of dishonesty, greed, drunkenness and rash abuse of senior citizens brought me nothing but disappointment, misery and losses.
By the grace of God, today I speak not as a victim, but as a hero. I have accepted my losses, and I have moved on. And as I reflect on my experience, I cannot help but urge Wike to do the same and allow peace and development to reign in Rivers State.
Nyesom Wike, when you speak of investing in Governor Sim Fubara’s election, remember those like me who also invested in you. Remember the sacrifices I made, the risks I took, and the promises and agreements you left unfulfilled.
It is time for you, Wike, to let go of the past and allow Governor Sim Fubara the breathing space he needs to lead Rivers State forward. Allow him to focus on the challenges of good governance and the aspirations of the people. Spare him these unwarranted and ill-conceived political manoeuvrings founded on personal agenda and not for general good of Rivers State and her people.
I may have lost my investment on Wike, but I have not lost hope in the future of Rivers State. And together, we will continue to strive for a brighter tomorrow.
Long Live the Governor to Rivers State, Sir Siminialayi Fubara!
Long Live the Good People of Rivers State!!
Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!!
Engr Ikuru is former Deputy Governor of Rivers State.
Tele Ikuru