The Inter-ethnic Network for Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, INCRA, lambasts Governor Wike over the mindless distortion of facts during a Phone-in programme on radio over the weekend. We are bothered that the Governor frontlessly desecrates the high office which he occupies, breach public trust and confidence and defies the ethics of his office with his blatant and incorrigible lies to the public.
A wholly different and dangerous dimension is his use of the mass media to mislead or misinform the public on important social and political issues. The grossest example is provided by the recent media outing where he sufficiently twisted facts to beguile the masses, fool his gullible supporters and project the Hon. Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi as his reason for failing to provide good governance in the State and live up to expectations.
One instance of the Governor's unthinking lies was when a player of the Rivers Angels Football Team called in during the program on radio to appeal to the Governor to host the team as is the wont, having won a major competition. Mendaciously, the Governor replied in an unfriendly tone, "You see my problem, they dont even know I have hosted them." One wonders how he hosted the Rivers Angels team and the team members are not aware the Governor had played host to them. That is the kind of bare-faced lies we contend with daily just like his claim of the Osborne gate cash as well as the CD tape record of how the Police and the APC planned to rig the rerun elections in 2017.
Governor Wike miscued when he claimed that he had never armed any youth all through his political career. It is ridiculous that Wike could make such claims. Its on record that the 2015 election that brought him to power was the bloodiest and most violent election in the history of Rivers State. Beyond that, no government in the State has patronised cultists and political thugs more than the Wike-led government. This is evident in the kind of characters currently serving in his government and the notorious ex-militants and cultists he often appoints as CTC Chairmen and members all over the 23 LGAs in the State.
Pointedly, Governor Wike had admitted during his media outing that the reason his administration abandoned the Banana plantation and supervised its destruction- a project with the capacity to employ about 4000 workers- was because the project was a private investment. One is compelled to ask if the Governor had proscribed private investments in the State? Is the image laundering advert running on CNN and sponsored by the State government not intended to woo private investors to the State?
It is highly appalling that the Governor does not understand the public process and its mechanisms, otherwise, he would not have made such preposterous and backward statement about the Banana plantation. For the avoidance of doubt, the Banana plantation was a Public Private Partnership project between the Rivers State Government and San Carlos Nigeria Limited with 40% counterpart fund by the State government while the remaining 60% was to be provided by the partner.
We are perturbed that a Governor who should seek after the economic viability and growth of the State is the one discouraging investments in the State and supervising the degradation and abandonment of projects and programs instituted by the Amaechi-led government geared towards the economic liberation of the State, purely out of personal political reasons. Can the Governor claim to truly have the economic and political interest of the State at heart?
While it is convenient for the Governor to take to public medium to make unfounded statements sufficiently rooted in falsehood, we would like him to at least choose his lies carefully. It is sickening to hear a sitting Governor show so much disregard for his dignity and throw decorum into the winds.
Another spurious claim was his assertion that he constructed a road that has made it possible for cars to drive into Opobo town. It is common knowledge that the Unity road was conceived by former Governor Peter Odili, however, it was during Amaechi's tenure that Dr. Dakuku Adol Peterside as Commissioner for Works on realising that the road did not link Opobo directly added a spur which made it possible to access Opobo from Port Harcourt. As far back as 2014 the military that was drafted to maintain peace in Opobo drove into Opobo with their trucks. Obviously Wike wasn't governor in 2014.
Nothing has exposed the Governor's hypocrisy more than his incessant attacks on Amaechi. There is no end in sight to his dissimulations and treachery. The Governor would want the public to erroneously believe that Amaechi's political associates are falling out with him, whereas the truth of the matter is that such persons who are obviously of the same mould as the Governor who is one of the biggest beneficiaries of Amaechi's benevolent demeanour, were around Amaechi only to pursue their personal interests. Having rode on Amaechi's back to prominence just like the Governor and as did Judas Iscariot they elected to choose other paths. Governor Wike himself, cannot claim not to have lost political associates, perhaps we should believe those who left him did so because of his recreant and treacherous disposition.
Wike should stop getting himself worked up about who emerges the Governorship standard bearer of the APC in Rivers State ahead of the 2019 elections and concentrate on how to deliver good governance within the few months left for him to vacate the Brick House in 2019. It is an incontestible fact that Amaechi as the leader of the APC in Rivers State and the South-South has the right to express his opinion and provide direction on who should be the Party's flag bearer provided such a person emerges through credible primaries in line with the Party's internal arrangements. What happens in the APC should hardly be the Governor's problems.
The Governor conveniently forgets that his administration's maladroitness and undiplomatic posture has caused the State a lot, including economic unproductivity, avoidable loss of lives and properties, huge financial resources and human capital development. If as a matter of fact, the Rivers State the Governor inherited is shorn of good programmes and promising policies, must the Governor aggravate the situation with his unmeaning, witless and directionless style of governance?
It is time for Rivers people to brace up and resist this evil foisted on us through electoral malfeasance with their votes in 2019 when the electorates will get a chance to truly elect a Governor with vision and passion for governance.
INCRA,
Ubima, Rivers State.
January, Mon. 22, 2017.
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