Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi has
spoken on his frosty relationship with President Goodluck Jonathan,
saying the state is being victimised.
The state is neglected by the Federal Government, which ceded its oil wells to neighbouring Bayelsa State, the governor said.
Amaechi, who is also the Chairman of
the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), noted that he left the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) for the main opposition All Progressives Congress
(APC) to protect the interest of Rivers.
He urged Rivers indigenes to be
politically-conscious and become agents of progressive change, thereby
voting out the ruling PDP at the federal level.
The governor spoke on Wednesday at the
Government House, Port Harcourt, the state capital, while interacting
with medical doctors.
Amaechi said the APC held the light to
the country’s rapid development and to reducing the general
impoverishment in the country.
He said one of the reasons for his
disagreement with the Federal Government was the Soku oil wells in the
Kalabari area of Rivers State, which were ceded to Bayelsa State and
which the Rivers State government contested in court.
The NGF chairman said: “For Rivers
State, basically that is the cause of the quarrel and you have a choice
to make. The choice for me is to vote out PDP and there is no sentiment
about that.
”Legally, we have not lost Soku (oil
wells). We have just lost Soku to the fact that the President is from
Bayelsa. When a President that is not from Bayelsa comes, he will look
at the facts and the facts are there.
”The Federal Government, in writing in
the court, said to the court: ‘sorry, court, we made a mistake; we will
correct the mistake’ and we have told the Federal Government: ‘don’t
call us for a meeting; go and correct that mistake. How could you people
wake up in 2011… suddenly changed the map of Nigeria and take Soku into
Bayelsa State?”
Amaechi also said the Jonathan
administration failed to execute a road project awarded by the Olusegun
Obasanjo administration to link the oil-rich Bonny Island in the state.
He said: “That road to Bonny was
awarded by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. They started; they have
done just one bridge. The road has been abandoned. Yar’Adua tried to
restart it, but he stopped.
“President Goodluck Jonathan has
forgotten about that road completely, despite the fact that part of the
money that feeds the Nigerian economy comes from that place, Bonny.
That’s where you have the natural gas plant.”
The governor said the Federal
Government had not reimbursed the state for the N105 billion spent on
the Port Harcourt-Owerri federal road, Eleme and Agip flyovers in Port
Harcourt, among others.
On his administration’s bid to secure a
loan to provide potable water for residents, Amaechi said the loan was
being held up because of the challenge posed by the Minister of Finance,
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, whom he noted had not signed off on the loan.
Amaechi said: “I will start from water.
We got African Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank to give us a loan,
for which we will pay 0.4 per cent for 40 years, which is a wonderful
loan and we planned to give Port Harcourt people water first.
”If everybody in Rivers State is
drinking (potable) water that will reduce the number of patients that go
to Braithwaite Memorial Hospital or any other hospital. World Bank
agreed; Federal Government agreed; ADB agreed. They said, ‘go and do due
process’. We have finished due process. What is remaining is for the
Minister of Finance to just sign off.
”In fact, you know, like I tell people,
I have no appetite for money, they can award the contract to whoever
they want; all I want is water, because that will impact on other
sectors of the Rivers State economy. ‘Oh, you are quarrelling with the
President, we will not sign’; that is why they have not signed.
”Should the President of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria that schooled in the University of Port Harcourt,
worked at OMPADEC, Ministry of Education, University of Education or
College of Education (COE) sit down there and deny Rivers people water?”
The people chorused ‘No’. “Should I remain in that kind of government (party)?” Again, the people chorused ‘no.’
Amaechi said his decision to join the
APC was not for his personal interests, but for the state. The people of
the state to discourage politics based on tribe or region and play
politics for the collective interests of the people.
He said: “It is not about Ijaw. It is
not about Southsouth, because the first question I will ask myself is
‘what have I benefitted in the government of President Goodluck
Jonathan? We gave him between 1.5 million to 2.1 million votes. What
have we got? What has the Federal Government done for Rivers
people?” ”Nothing,” the people chorused.
Amaechi also decried the grounding of
the state’s aircraft by the Federal Government and its refusal to sign
to allow the state to bring in two surveillance helicopters from the
United States to check kidnapping and other crimes.
The NGF chairman also stated that his
critics in the state had been angry with him for his refusal to be
corrupt, stressing that the Police Commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, was
influenced in his actions by the Presidency.
The Rivers Chairman of the Nigerian
Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Ibitrokoemi Korubo, assured the governor
that they would continue to support his good policies.
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