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Fubara Is A Manifestation Of God’s Own Intervention – Samuel-Horsefall
Chief Paworiso Samuel-Horsfall, a tested politician and an astute administrator with a rich pedigree in public service spanning decades, is a former Commissioner in Rivers State under the administration of Sir (Dr) Peter Odili.
In this exclusive interview, the revered Kalabari Chief, who is the Coordinator of the SIMPLIFIED MOVEMENT in Asari-Toru Local Government Area, gave his verdict on Governor Siminialayi’s one year in office and revealed the underbelly of the political crisis in Rivers State.
Excerpts:
QUESTION – The Governor of Rivers State, His Excellency, Sir Siminalayi Fubara is celebrating his one year on the saddle, what is your scorecard of his administration in the midst of a political crisis barely three months of his assumption of office?
ANSWER – The Governor has proved his detractors very wrong, very wrong and I can safely score him 90 percent in terms of performance and good governance. I Chief Paworiso Samuel-Horsfall can safely score him 90 percent. There is this saying that a good dancer is known from the first step and then look at all His Excellency, Governor Siminalayi Fubara has done, from the first step of handling the issues of civil servants and Rivers people; look at the payment of unprecedented Christmas bonus; the promotions; the provision of single digit interest loans to over 3,000 Small Scale and Medium Scale business owners in the State and the provision of 20,000 housing units to low income earners. Then get into his achievements in the area of infrastructural development spread acros the State. It is massive, so massive that it is difficult to believe that there is indeed any form of crisis in Rivers State.
The incumbent Governor also has a new approach to governance by deciding not to inherit his predecessor’s enemies and also continue to abandon laudable projects that would benefit the State and give good governance. Now, that is part of the problem. For instance, the Songhai Farm which the former Governor, who is now the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Barr. Nyesom Wike, killed. Likewise the Fish Farms in Buguma and other places. Wike killed them because of his political differences with his predecessor, Rt Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, not minding the benefits those projects could bring to Rivers people.
Wike killed them but we know that agriculture today should be the mainstay after our oil and gas. But because the incumbent Governor decides that Songhai Farm should be revamped, it is a problem for his predecessor, Wike. That’s a shame.
The incumbent Governor knows that the farm and the other agricultural projects would, at least, create employment and also put food on our tables, so he went ahead with it.
There are moribund industries he is also going to look into. And then, look at the projects that were initiated by his predecessor, he is completing and commissioning them. And most of the projects that his predecessor initiated became a debt burden on the current Governor. He has been lamenting that part of the challenge is the debt burden on him.
QUESTION – But didn’t former Governor Wike tell Rivers people on several occasions that he was not owing any contractors and banks?
ANSWER – That is a big lie. Even our own Emohua-Kalabari road was left with about 72 percent debt. Wike paid only 28 percent of the contract cost, leaving a huge difference of 72 percent which was paid by Governor Fubara. What about the Port Harcourt Ring Road project? Wike caused the State to obtain a loan of about N200 billion and paid about N150 billion to the contractors, then the other N50 billion was given to his brother, the Estate Valuer. So as we speak today, the current Governor is paying back loans and this spreads round.
But to God be the glory that Governor Fubara was able to put his eyes down on the internally generated revenue from where he is able to initiate more projects, complete some within this period.
QUESTION – You are a critical stakeholder in the Rivers project. What is your stake in this whole political crisis currently in the State?
ANSWER – My stake on this crisis is that former Governor Nyesom Wike has probably failed to realise that he is no more in power as the Governor of Rivers State, that he is a Minister today, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. And rather than restrict himself to his assignment as Minister of FCT, he wants to combine it as a third term Governor of Rivers State by trying to have absolute control. And Wike sees that as being grateful and loyal if Governor Fubara complies and as being ungrateful and disloyal if he does not comply.
So, you want to look at the genesis of the crisis, what happened that caused the State House of Assembly, as at then, to want to impeach the Governor who was barely three months in office? Now if you look at previous video clips of the former Governor, Wike, and his utterances, you find out that as at today, all that he is doing completely negates what he has said in the past.
Now, are you saying, a sitting Governor does not have authority to exercise in the governance of a State? We saw it even from the inception that the former Governor virtually established the cabinet. Right from the Chief of Staff to the appointment of principal Commissioners, all were done by the former Governor as evident in their behaviours. And the former Governor made restrictions to the incumbent Governor, including even meetings that he had to attend, not to attend. So you can see that the cabinet itself was established by the former Governor. What does that mean? That means that the former Governor wants to take absolute control of governance, because he is appointing SSG, Attorney- General, Works Commissioner, Education Commissioner, virtually all the key sectors of the government he is appointing.
He also has the Board of Internal Revenue in his pocket and boasts that he has the structure. While all that is going on with him dictating where and when and what meetings the incumbent Governor will attend, he also has the Board of Internal Revenue to his coffers, and when the incumbent Governor now wants to know about how much is actually being generated, problems started emanating from that angle.
The current Governor had been Finance Director, this and that until he got to Accountant General, so he knows about what the State generates internally, monthly, and then it becomes a problem when he tries to ask questions. The former Board Chairman tells the former Governor, see what is happening, the Governor is trying to find out what is going on, and then the former Governor raises dust and then gives directives to the Assembly members to impeach him.
Meanwhile, because the former Governor has his sinister plans, he even made the Speaker of the Assembly to come from his local government so that in the event that the Governor is impeached with his Deputy, the Speaker becomes the acting Governor, apparently showing that he is still in control, and that his ethnic nationality and local government area still in control. So, he gives order to the Assembly members to impeach the Governor and that process caused the beginning of the crisis because the current Chief of Staff who was the the Leader of the Assembly and others refused to take part in such a terrible plan.
So, the problem started which eventually ended up in the emergence of a new Assembly headed by Rt. Hon. Edison Ehie when the former members defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) thereby vacating their seats and the issues continued like that until the President’s intervention. But during that incident, Rivers people rose up to say why will this happen? And the incumbent Governor himself asked, “what have I done to warrant impeachment?” I think till date, that question has not been answered.
QUESTION – Would you say the President’s intervention has in any way helped to resolve the crisis?
ANSWER – Now, the President’s intervention which was meant to resolve this matter has escalated it and brought us to where we are today and, all due respect to our President, I want to blame him for the eight points agenda that he gave as a proclamation, political solution to the matter. That resolution was very unfair to the incumbent Governor and the good people of Rivers State. It has not helped in anyway because, first, the resolution seemed to have dismissed the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, when for instance it was obvious that the defection of the 27 or 25 members, as the case may be, to APC at a time there was no crisis in the PDP as clearly stated in section 109 subsection 1(g) that automatically meant that they have vacated their seats and the then Speaker who is now the Chief of Staff also declared their seats vacant and wrote to INEC and also to PDP. The President thad that information and yet stated that as a father, what would he have done other than to accept them if members defect to his party? And he so accepts them and then decides that they remain as Assembly members. That is an impeachable offence in a civilised country, because he has completely violated the Constitution he swore to protect and defend.
Second, for the President to order that the budget that has been legitimately passed and signed into law as an appropriation law should be represented to the Martin Amaewhule led Assembly members was absurd. It is not done anywhere. He shouldn’t have dabbled into those areas that have legal and constitutional issues to resolve. And it seems to us that that resolution that was a proclamation did not originate from meeting with both parties. It is like an order, like reading a riot act, because he came in with that paper and handed over to my former boss, former Governor, Dr. Peter Odili to read and thereafter virtually threatened the Governor because he said he is using the carrot and stick stuff. The kind of utterances he made clearly shows a threat. Our Governor was threatened to sign or agree. And when he came, the Rivers people, and indeed well meaning Nigerians all over, raised their voices as an objection to that kind of proclamation from the President to a State governor. That’s why we are still where we are.
And whereas the incumbent Governor was trying to meet up the areas that he could without totally violating the Constitution, and also taking into cognisance the sensibility of Rivers people, because part of it was that he should recall the Commissioners that resigned and represent them to the Assembly that, abinitio, does not exist. He did that and came back and insisted of them behaving in a manner that would support the government and the Governor, they were rather doing things to sabotage the Government. Even in their utterances, they were berating the Governor and clearly making him know that he is not their boss and that he is also not the leader of Rivers people and the party itself.
You can see a situation where the former Governor, Wike, was at every opportunity throwing tantrums at the incumbent Governor, our dear beloved, peaceful, humane, humble, down-to-earth Governor, Sir Siminalayi Fubara. And ofcourse, it would be unwise for the Governor to sit, fold his hands and see himself being impeached for no reason. And he also responded appropriately and today we have a proper Assembly that is being led by Rt. Hon. Oko-Jumbo which has also declared these committee of friends as nonexistent, their seats also declared vacant and calling on INEC Chairman to put himself together to come and conduct fresh elections.
Meanwhile, there are legal issues involved in it for which the party (PDP), NGOs are in Court to ensure that there is a legal pronouncement that their seats have been declared vacant by the reason of their defections. So, that’s where we are and I can say that to a very large extent, infact totally, this whole problem was caused by the former Governor, Nyesom Wike, who sees himself as a demigod that must be worshipped by the entire State. A former Governor who, when he was in power, was a despot or as an autocrat, was a dictator. He was more like a Kabaka, who can not, I emphasize, dwell in a proper democratic setting, he can’t.
QUESTION – Do you think that all these moves and actions of the former Governor Wike have anything to do with his presidential ambition?
ANSWER – I can tell you for free that till tomorrow, Wike will still be wanting to aspire to the office of the President. If you look at the current appointments that he has been able to make while being Minister, he has been appointing them to juicy places where they can make money to add to what he might accumulate to sponsor his ambition of becoming president in the future. His ambition is still alive. It is that ambition and how to strategise for its huge funding and previous manipulations during and after the last elections that has put him into this problem. Everytime he does something or calculates, it is purely selfish. You recall his escapades in his Presidential ambition in the PDP and how it landed him swallowing his vomit to become a Minister at last. Wike has serious Presidential ambition and that is where he is going to cross his path with the current President. He may be talking today that it is President Tinubu come 2027, it is a lie. Come that period, you will see the other side of him that we all know today.
QUESTION – As the leader of the SIMPLIFIED MOVEMENT in Asari Toru Local Government Area, would you say that Asari-Toru people, and indeed Kalabari people, have felt the positive impact of Governor Fubara’s administration within this one year?
ANSWER – In passing I mentioned the Emohua-Kalabari road, but beyond that, the main Trans-Kalabari road that previous administrations have failed to take on, Governor Fubara has flagged off its construction. A N225 billion project, the main Trans-Kalabari Road has started and guess what? He has also paid 30 percent mobilisation to the contractors. And you know what we are going to derive from the construction of that road? So, it is huge for us and even on the day of commissioning of the Emohua-Kalabari Road, the Governor made more pronouncements, promising to reconstruct the road leading from Buguma to Abonnema, in addition to the construction of the Tema-Ifoko road. Don’t we have all the reasons to be thankful to God for this Governor he has given to us for whom the former Governor is saying is a mistake?
QUESTION – Chief, is it actually a mistake?
ANSWER – It is a blessing, it is the biggest blessing and a clear manifestation of God’s own intervention. This Governor is answered prayers of Rivers people. This is one of the areas I have seen that God actually uses the foolish things to confound the wise. So, I think that we as Kalabari people have every reason to be very grateful to God for giving us Sir Siminalayi Fubara as our Governor.
The Sole Administrator of Rivers State, Vice Admiral Ibok Ete Ekwe Ibas (rtd), has charged the new Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Prof Ibibia Lucky Worika to bring his wealth of experience to bear in governance of the State.
Vice Admiral Ibas (rtd) gave the charge shortly after swearing in the new SSG at the executive chambers of Government House on Wednesday night.
The Administrator who congratulated Prof Worika on his appointment said the choice was not merely an administrative decision but a statement of intent.
Vice Admiral Ibas (rtd) explained that the new SSG has an unparallel expertise in law, policy and international governance, which align perfectly with the mission to restore law, order, integrity and public trust in Rivers State.
He said: “To our new SSG, the task ahead is onerous, but your track record leaves no doubt in our minds that you will prove your mettle. Rivers State needs your intellect, grit and unweaving dedication. Together, we will write a new chapter of progress for this great state.
“Prof Worika’s role will be critical in driving this vision, ensuring that every policy, every decision and every action is in consonance with this administration’s mandate to restore law and order, stabilize the polity and to create the necessary conditions for the restoration of democratic institutions and representations.”
Vice Admiral Ibas (rtd) pointed to his maiden address to Rivers people wherein he emphasised that his administration will be committed to delivering an effective governance that is anchored on transparency, accountability and service.
He therefore, enjoined the new SSG to brace up to the demands of his office, and offer his best service as required while also working cooperatively with civil servants.
Vice Admiral Ibas (rtd) said: “You have no time to settle down. You must roll up your sleeves and get to work with the team.
“Our civil servants with whom we will work closely to run this administration are critical stakeholders and we must work with them to ensure that the state continues to function effectively during this administration.
“To the Permanent Secretaries and civil servants as a whole, once more I will ask your kind cooperation and support as we work to achieve our objectives at this time,” he added.
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I Am One Of You, Sole Administrator Tells Rivers People …Warns Against Violence, Crude Oil Sabotage
The Sole Administrator of Rivers State, Retired Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas (rtd), has assured residents that he is not in the State as a partisan actor or political competitor but as a stabilising force to restore governance and order.
In a state broadcast yesterday, Ibas, who assumed duty at Government House, Port Harcourt, emphasised his commitment to protecting civil liberties and ensuring the safety of all citizens.
However, he issued a stern warning against crude oil sabotage and violence, urging residents to resist any temptation to return to past hostilities.
“For decades, I have dedicated my life to the service of our great nation—first as the 20th indigenous Chief of Naval Staff and later as Nigeria’s High Commissioner to Ghana. I answered this call out of the need for peace in Nigeria, and most importantly, in Rivers State,” Ibas stated.
Describing the prolonged political impasse as a major setback to governance and democracy, he acknowledged the hardships faced by families and businesses due to the prevailing uncertainty.
“As a son of the Niger Delta, I am one of you. I feel the weight of this crisis on families, businesses, and the future of our people,” he said.
Ibas commended President Bola Tinubu’s decisive action in declaring a state of emergency in Rivers State, stressing that it was a necessary move to restore stability and revive economic activities.
“My mandate is clear: restore law and order, ensure stability, and create an enabling environment for economic growth. But this mission requires collective support from all stakeholders, regardless of political affiliation or ethnicity,” he stated.
He discouraged attacks on oil infrastructure, reminding residents of the devastating environmental and economic consequences of such actions.
“The Niger Delta has moved beyond the destruction of oil facilities. We must resist the temptation to return to those ugly days,” he cautioned.
While pledging to uphold civil liberties and the rule of law, the Sole Administrator warned that lawlessness and violence would not be tolerated.
“We will not act arbitrarily, but we will not hesitate to deal decisively with anyone who threatens the peace and stability of Rivers State,” he declared.
Ibas revealed that he had concluded a State Security Council meeting where strategic measures were outlined to de-escalate tensions and prevent further conflict.
Expressing gratitude to President Tinubu for entrusting him with the responsibility, he also acknowledged the National Assembly for approving the emergency declaration.
“I will work closely with the national leadership under the guidance of the President. I am optimistic that Rivers State will emerge stronger and greater,” he concluded.
The Federal Capital Territory Emergency Management Department has confirmed that 10 persons have died in the truck explosion that occurred near Karu bridge, along the Abuja-Keffi Expressway, on Wednesday.
The FEMD’s Head of Public Affairs, Nkechi Isa, confirmed the numbers in a statement, yesterday.
The Acting Director General of the Emergency Department, Abdulrahman Mohammed, had earlier confirmed that eight persons had died as of yesterday morning, with five confirmed dead on the scene, and four others burnt beyond recognition.
““Five people were taken dead from the scene yesterday (Wednesday). Out of the people that were injured, one died, making six. Then this morning (yesterday), when I asked my people to go round, they discovered that two had already died again, making eight. Four of them from yesterday were burnt beyond recognition.”, he explained.
However, in her statement, Isa said the Head, Forecasting Response and Mitigation of FEMD, Mr Mark Nyam, said eight bodies were deposited at the Karu Hospital Morgue, one body at the Asokoro Distinct Hospital Morgue while another body was deposited at the National Hospital.
He added that some victims had been referred to the Gwagwalada Teaching Hospital, Federal Medical Centre, Keffi, and Cedercrest Hospital Abuja for proper care.
Part of the statement reads, “The FCT Emergency Management Department FEMD can confirm that 10 persons lost their lives to the truck explosion that occurred at Karu bridge along Abuja / Keffi expressway.
“The Head Forecasting Response and Mitigation of FEMD, Mr Mark Nyam said eight bodies were deposited at the Karu Hospital Morgue, one body at the Asokoro Distinct Hospital Morgue while another body was deposited at the National Hospital.”
He informed that over 30 persons suffered various degrees of burns.
“Some of the victims have been referred to Gwagwalada Teaching Hospital, Federal Medical Centre,Keffi and Cedercrest Hospital Abuja for proper care,” he said.
Isa also stated that no fewer than 10 vehicles were burnt during the incident, adding that the FEMD boss after a visit to the incident scene, appealed to motorists to observe traffic rules and regulations.
He also cautioned against reckless driving, dangerous overtaking and poor maintenance of vehicles, while urging FCT residents to always use the 112 emergency toll free number in the event of an emergency.
Meanwhile, barely 24 hours after the incident, another fertiliser-laden truck has collapsed on the same spot.
The Tide learnt that the incidence occurred at about 3:54pm yesterday.
The Head of Public Affairs of the FCT Emergency Management Department, Nkechi Isa, confirmed the accident in a statement, stating that the truck collided with a Hijet and a dump truck, adding that no life was lost.
She cautioned road users to drive with caution as the Federal Road Safety Corps was making efforts to tow away the affected vehicles, to avoid traffic built up.
“Another accident has occurred under Karu bridge along the Abuja-Keffi Expressway. Thankfully, no life was lost to the incident. Our Search and Rescue say the accident occurred when a truck laden with fertilizer ran into a Hijet and a dump truck also known as tipper.
“Motorists are advised to drive with caution as the Federal Road Safety Corps is taking steps to tow away the affected vehicles in order to avoid traffic built up,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, several videos showed some persons trying to clear the fertiliser bags from the fallen truck to ease traffic.