Issues
Re: Wike, A Governor Possessed By Spirit Of Flyovers
Our attention was drawn to an article titled: “Wike, a Governor Possessed By Spirit of Flyovers” published by Yemi Adebowale. It was in his ‘RingTrue’ column of the ThisDay Newspaper of August 6th, 2022.
The writer exhibited distasteful notoriety with his recluse to illogical offerings in public space of what he least knew about. The development audacity of Governor Nyesom Wike has remained all inclusive. The writer hardly grasped that extent. His piece depicted him as a sad minded and bitter man. Evidences of one soaked in skewed social media snippets abounded in his piece.
Publishers of such snippets, always, were backward looking critics. They feared to seek out the fact that would help them cease from misinformation. Yemi Adebowale, unfortunately so, had showed himself to be among such political opportunists and hack writers who politicise and trivialise issues of development with puerile logic.
As their stock-in-trade, they criticise blindly every genuine intention of Governor Wike. It is therefore, imperative for us to overcome the temptation of being silent over such snide and provocative innuendos in that obviously sponsored pervasive rant.
Stating it as it is, from inception of his administration on May 29th, 2015, up until now, Governor Wike has been dogged with issues of development . He started off with such urgency and accomplished so much within first few months in office. The drive was predicated on repairing the rot in all sectors that he inherited. The giant development strides were to rebuild the broken walls of social trust and vitalise the economy of the State. So, the well thought out development plan and its system implementation remained in focus and encompasses all sectors.
Perhaps, Yemi is oblivious of the fact that all across the globe, service-oriented governments are reinventing many cosmopolitan cities like Port Harcourt to become people friendly and sustainable.
Perennial traffic congestions in major cities like Lagos, Cairo, Port Harcourt have been identified as major bottleneck to economic growth and development.
And as part of his integrated urban renewal programme, Governor Wike decided to embark on the construction of flyovers to solve traffic snarls in major intersections within Port Harcourt and Obio-Akpor councils.
Until the Wike’s infrastructure revolution, residents of Port Harcourt and its environ will attest to the fact that driving or better still, commuting along the busy Port Harcourt-Aba Road Expressway, was harrowing due to traffic congestion. A ten minutes drive today, could take up to two hours thirty minutes. That was the reality of those who live and do business in the State capital before the Wike’s administration began to proffer solution to this problem.
The seven out of twelve flyovers already inaugurated have helped to streamline the traffic in Port Harcourt and its environs. A lot of irretrievable time, which is unit of life spent in congestion is avoided through these flyovers.
We are confident that these flyovers will tremendously help the business community to grow its business.
These flyovers have contributed significantly to the aesthetics of the Rivers State capital. Anyone driving through the flyovers any time of the day of course will relish a panoramic view of the Garden city.
Only narrow-minded people and those who must remain blind to any meaningful, genuine and concrete development take to mischief. They refused to see the connecting strings of each development towards the overall development of the state and its people.
But, why is the construction 12 flyovers by Governor Wike a pain to Yemi Adebowale? Without any contradiction, he is particularly averse to appreciating the benefits of the flyovers. They remained remarkable achievement. The record set would not be beaten for a long time. In contemporary times, no State government could dare.
Yemi Adebowale also had enthused that these flyovers are the only projects that are being executed. He lied. His assertions are robed with pale claims. It only proves that he had not been to Rivers State before or, maybe lately. If he had, he would be enthusiastic to do an independent search for facts. Such efforts would have espoused him to evidences of other shades of development ongoing. This is because, some levels of development are intangible. But he could still berth at shores of tangible others different from flyovers.
Governor Wike’s administration has turned and transformed not less than 20 major single lane roads into dual carriage. They include Igwuruta – Chokocho road, Saapkenwa – Bori road, Tam David West Boulevard, Rumuokwurishi – Eneka – Igwuruta road, Rumuepirikom – Rumuolumeni road, Rebisi – Trans-Amadi – Oginigba road, Justice Iche Ndu road, Eagle Island – Illoabuchi road, Elelenwo – Akpajo road, Birabi road, Emeyal road, Tombia road, Forces Avenue, Olumeni road, Abacha road, and Harley street, Tombia Extension, Eastern bypass, Ogbum-nu-Abali/Eastern bypass road,and the Ezimgbu road. They have street lights, pedestrian walkways and covered drains.
Already, a lot of roads connecting and interconnecting several communities across the State are ongoing. They include Phase one of the Ahoada – Omoku dual carriage way, the phase two Saakpenwa-Bori – Kono dual carriage way, the dualisation of Egbema- Omoku road, the Woji – Aleto – Alesa road and the Wakama – Ogu – Bolo road, are underway.
It is worthy to noted that Opobo axis of the Ogoni- Opobo-Andoni road has achieved, Andoni community is next and would soon be completed so that coastal communities of Ngo, Ikuru and other towns along that way can be accessed by road after decades of failed promises by the previous governments. It is in similar vein that the construction of phase one of the Trans-Kalabari road has commenced.
Governor Wike has also provided over 1200 classrooms and nearly 14,000 desks to over 200 primary and junior secondary schools. His administration has also reconstructed, furnished and equipped several secondary schools with modern classrooms, laboratories, libraries, sports facilities, staff quarters and paved interconnecting road networks.
The facts abound that at the tertiary level, the governor has elevated the structural quality of State’s tertiary institutions with new faculty, administrative and other buildings, strengthened the governance systems and enhanced staff welfare with the new salary structure.
Apart from the College of Medical Sciences, the Wike’s administration has also implemented a multi-campus structure for the Rivers State University with the establishment of new campuses at Emohua, Ahoada and Etche Local Government Areas, thereby increasing the carrying capacity of the University and providing more access to quality tertiary education for Rivers people and other Nigerians. The restoration of the multi-campus status of the Rivers State University opened a vista of engagement of more personnel.
In the health sector, the Wike’s administration has built some new primary healthcare centres for under-served communities, renovated some existing primary health centres and general hospitals, commissioned the 132-bed Mother and Child specialist hospital, established the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital, built the Senior Doctors’ Quarters and rebuilt and upgraded the Government House Specialist Clinic, while a Junior Doctors Quarters is also under construction
The Wike’s administration re-equipped and upgraded the Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital. Today, it serves as the Teaching Hospital of the College of Medical Sciences. Manpower was engaged to ease provision of healthcare in expanded RSUTH.
The scholarship scheme established for Rivers indigenes studying at PAMO University of Medical Sciences subsists. Currently, over six hundred students are benefiting. This had ultimately provided medical education to Rivers children and other Nigerians. Notably, there were separate approval for an automatic employment of all Rivers State indigenes who bagged Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) during the 2018 Convocation Ceremony of the Rivers State University.
We wondered why these are not human capital development to Yemi Adebowale. Maybe, he would need to be reminded that in 2021, employment of teaching and non- teaching staff was concluded at the Rivers State University. There is an ongoing recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff at the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education.
Yemi Adebowale least understood the implementation of the water reforms programmes, driven convincingly to specific and targeted communities. On the 15th April, 2016, the State Urban Water Sector reform programme was launched. The programme encapsulated the Port Harcourt Water Supply Scheme and the Sanitation Project.
Precisely on August 31st, 2020, the Rivers State government signed contracts for the rehabilitation and upgrading of water supply for Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor Local Government Areas. 496 kilometers of pipeline which will produce 330,000 cubic metres of potable water per day are currently being upgraded. This project will equally create over 1,200 direct jobs and 5,000 indirect jobs for Rivers people.
Soon, water will flow in public taps. Besides the Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor local government areas urban water scheme, the Wike’s administration rehabilitated moribund water projects in 18 of the 23 Local Government Areas of the state. These water projects are targeted at improving access to potable water in the respective communities.
The significance of these deliberate, yet strategic interventions in a critical sector of the State inclusive of the Flyovers underscores the determination of leader who changed the narrative of leadership that is committed to good governance.
Yemi Adebowale in his penchant for peddling falsehood, claimed governor Wike has not been paying pensions, even when ThisDay published this report in May, 2022, ‘Wike Orders Immediate Payment of Gratuities, Pensions to Rivers Retirees.’
Yemi Adebowale’s suggestion that Governor Wike ought to have completed the abandoned monorail projects clearly depicts as someone possessed by spirit of ignorance.
Is Yemi Adebowale aware that in the twilight of the immediate past administration in Rivers State, the technical consultant on the monorail had planned to unveil the contentious project specifically to mislead the people of Rivers State that the project that was abandoned after 2.6 km of the over 19 km phase one, after gulping over N33.9bn was still on course.
It is on record that the Managing Director of ARCUS GIBBS Nig Ltd, technical partners to the Rivers State government on the Monorail Project, Wiero Viguezang, in 2015 declared that the project was no longer tenable, considering the shortfall of the state’s revenue and the inability of its original technical and equity partners, TSI Nig Ltd, to fulfil its obligations to contribute 80 per cent of its equity holdings.
In April, 2015, ARCUS GIBBSS, had in a letter made a six-point recommendation to the Rivers State government on how to unbundle the monorail project by approaching the manufacturers of the mechanical components and rail tracks in Germany and exploit the possibility of reselling components at a lower price to the manufacturers.
It will interest him to know that no Rivers government will venture to complete the white elephant project.
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.
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
