An Addendum:Rivers State Government:It is time for "Governance" to commence in Rivers State beyond Procurement and Construction.
My post of August 14, 2017 asking the Rivers State Government to go beyond Procurement and Construction and begin to govern elicited a government response and even degenerated into a brawl. In the spirit of Rivers politics members of the All Progressives Congress latched on to it as fuel for bashing the government of the day without proffering solutions (even if they provide them,the PDP members would not publicly admit it) LOL.
My position is that the fundamentals of governance (soft issues) are suffering while we put brick and mortar on the front burner; it is no wonder that after several Trillions spent in Rivers State since 1999, it has turned Rivers State to the farm of the nation and not a final destination for investment.
I campaigned for Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike with my hard earned cash and he promised to raise the bar and outdo the administration of Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in all ramifications, thus making Rivers State an investor‘s destination of choice. I will thus respond but limit myself to a few examples to help as pointers for the government to rejig its modus operandi.
The Command and Control structure of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State only permits the followers to tell the leaders what they want to hear anything contrary is labeled as disloyalty and is considered a capital offence in Rivers Politics.
PROCESS AUDIT:
It was distasteful that Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi did not do a formal handover despite expending over N3.75 Trillion on behalf of the less than 3million residents of Rivers State. It is more shocking that two years after His Excellency Nyesom Wike has not conducted a process audit and has not made public the assets and liabilities he inherited even if it has not been the norm.
This is particularly important in the light of the allegations against his predecessor. If this information is not in the public domain, how do we measure the performance of the administration?
For the average PDP member in Rivers State, it does not matter to give account as what counts is ‘PROJECTS”.
SECURITY:
A primary responsibility bestowed on a Governor by the constitution without the requisite authority to manage the coercive agencies responsible for this role. Chief Nyesom Wike has invested heavily in this sector having provided over 80 vehicles for the Nigeria Police, gunboats and houses for the naval officers and a new guest house and other support for the Army. It will be nice to know if all these expenditure on the (federal) military were budgeted for in the 2017 ‘invincible’ budget. If so, Rivers state has become a very magnanimous state but our magnanimity should include pre-informing the owners of the common wealth.
Today, if you look around the state you will hardly find the 80 vehicles the Rivers State government had donated to the Police, which have been the norm with all previous administrations. I can’t remember the last time, the federal government provided vehicles for the Police Force after the administration of former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. This is not a state responsibility but the state and its residents suffer whenever the Police are grounded due to the unavailability of vehicles.
As a departure from the past, I would have thought that a logistics unit under the Ministry of Transport would have been set up to provide transportation (air, marine or road transport) for the Nigerian Police. The unit if set up, would handle maintenance and fueling of the vehicles and ensure that the Police will always have vehicles for use for their operations without the police owning them or been responsible for the maintenance of the vehicles and ensure their longevity.
Also, it is noteworthy to remind ourselves of the procurement of a surveillance aircraft by the Amaechi administration and donated by this administration to the office of the NSA earlier this year. There is no evidence that this aircraft is being used for the interest of Rivers people in terms of security of their lives and properties. While we acknowledge that this was not an appropriation of the current administration, but that of the former, it is Rivers money all the same, and Rivers people expect value for every fund money appropriated and spent. A clear case of procurement without a plan.
The governor has even embarked on an amnesty program that tends to offer the actors a new lease of life. The question is where is the place of the ordinary member of the common wealth in all of this? Where is the toll-free number he can call when he is besieged by the ‘’alternate governments’’ that abound all over the state? Which government official is explaining the plan of the government to the people without revealing its strategies?
HEALTH :
Former governor, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi purchased over 100 ambulances, 35 ambulance boats, 2 field hospitals, 1 marine field hospital, and it was reported at that time, that the official state jet will double as an Air ambulance, 120 houses …(opps sorry primary health centers), a dental hospital and a secondary health facility (Kelsey Harrison Centre).
These and the existing health facilities that pre-dated the previous administration were inherited in a stateof disrepair and if you go to the state’s only tertiary hospital Braithwaite Memorial Hospital, the true state of affairs will break your heart. Governor Nyesom Wike has responded by “breaking ground” to renovate over 13 existing facilities across the state.
It is evident that despite the expenditure of billions of naira of state resources have been expended on procurement but the absence of a cohesive plan cum policy for health have not changed the face of health care delivery particularly at the tertiary level in the state after 9years. If in doubt visit the emergency ward of the only state-owned tertiary heath facility in the state Braithwaite Memorial hospital and it will break your heart.
It is my belief that for Governor Nyesom Wike to be counted, he has to deal with the health sector in all ramifications beyond payment of salaries and renovations (brick and mortar). If properly harnessed, some of these health facilities can even become self-funding as people from neighboring states will patronize them. It will be nice to have a sustainable ambulance service back in operation and a Toll free number to back it up.
It will be nice for periodic inspection visits to our health facilities in the form of ‘Mystery shoppers’ and also a review of the competence and attitude of our medical personnel as they deliver service; so that another innocent child like 4 year old King Arnold Okorogba will not die again from gross incompetence and negligence.
THE JUDICIARY:
Gov. Nyesom Wike has invested heavily in this sector. As of today, the Bank and Station Road axis housing the courts are all built up with new court buildings and legal related buildings but nobody planned for parking.
A road that was planned by our forebears for easy thoroughfare is now a parking lot when the courts are session. I would have thought that a high rise with underground parking facility would have prevented this problem or relocation of some of those buildings to other parts of the city would have been appropriate. The old GRA was designed to be a low density area, our generation have not created another one like it, but have continued to deface it.
The very important soft issues for me would have been for the Wike administration to invest circa N10billion or more on the reduction of turnaround time for cases in courts, decongesting the office of the DPP with the aid of software, welfare support for state counsels and ensuring that the scourge of awaiting trial that have left thousands in prison be reduced to the barest minimum in the state.
The establishment of High Courts in other local governments, provision of transportation for state counsels going to the hinterlands for cases, a support system for these public prosecutors for them and their witnesses, even upfront provision of their allowances for these trips. The present commissioner for justice by now would have been pursuing the accomplishment of these targets.
ENERGY :
The Rt.Hon. Chibuike Amaechi administration continued the desire of Rivers State to achieve self-sufficiency in power and poured billions of naira in the sector, a mission started by the late former Governor Melford Okilo, emboldened by Former Governor Dr. Peter Odili and when the PGEJ opened up the sector, the state acquired more power assets and was thus positioned to be a major player in the power sector like it was in flour , but all of these assets were sold in less than a year surprisingly without carrying the people along. Today the state has been reduced to a mere share holder because of no long term plans for the sector in the state.
Experts claim that the availability of uninterrupted power supply is the bane of industrialization; Rivers State is the only state in Nigeria that have for the past two decades provided uninterrupted power for free in Omoku and for a token in Bonny, both towns are light years away from becoming industrialized for lack of critical thinking and plan for them. I had hoped that the Rivers State government would have joined the NLNG offer to build the Bonny-Bomu road (like it happened on the Ogbia –Nembe road , tripartite arrangement of shell, NDDC and Bayelsa state ) thus compelling the federal government to commit to the deal.
EDUCATION:
Rivers State has 2 Universities, 2 Polytechnics, a School of Nursing, a School of Health Technology,5 Vocational Schools, Several Skills acquisition centers, Secondary and Primary schools flung across the state. These state owned institutions are supported by thousands of private concerns in the sector and right now over 1,800 of unregistered schools are been asked to regularize their existence with the ministry of education(a nice effort) but it will be nice for the Governor to clandestinely follow up with the ongoing process. The government have consistently paid salaries paid the staff of the ministry who went to sleep while illegal schools blossomed in the state. Who was supposed to check this scourge? Nobody as no system is in place to check, review, sanction, commend or upgrade the quality of service been provided. Our principals in time past dreaded the inspectors from the Ministry Education, do they have official vehicles and support to their work .A proprietress of a private school told me that some of the inspectors send lists of things to be bought for the inspector/inspections before the visit, in this kind of relationship, they are unlikely to be optimal in their service delivery for the students and the state.
The last administration built lots of schools and also left several of them in various stages of abandonment due non funding and the present government have issued a policy statement concerning these uncompleted schools, particularly where pupils were relocated for their schools to be rebuilt.
In 2013 I conducted a survey with a couple of my friends on the post primary schools in Rivers State and we were shocked that mass promotions were rife, most schools in the hinterlands had no teachers as most of the teachers like doctors preferred to work in the Port Harcourt and Obio Akpor local governments. We officially raised the alarm for all students in Rivers State government schools to be tested to know If they merited their current classes so that the government would declare an emergency in the sector and begin to re-prepare these students for their classes and external examinations. I am aware the renovations were done but the students were not renovated, I don’t think the trend have changed to date.
Rivers State has cash cows in the form of the University of Education, the Polytechnic at Bori, School of Nursing, School of Health Technology, the Vocational centers at PH,Bonny,Ahoada &Azuabie . The world currently is investing massively in vocational education and nations like the Philippines export skilled manpower like nurses and technicians all over the world, a deliberate investment and management of these facilities beyond political patronage and the ‘Nigeria style ‘backed with cotemporary certifications will make them hot cakes like what the Petroleum Training Institute Warri used to be to the hydro carbon industry in Nigeria.
What is the plan of the present administration to ensure equitable distribution of quality education across the state?
Have the administration established a blue print for the sector to review the quality of its teachers and lecturers and even students and make provisions for catering for inherent gaps.
Do they realize that the difference between them and their predecessors will be the performance of its graduates in external examinations?
Should Rivers State still have ‘Helping Centers’ for external examinations?
AGRICULTURE:
The nation have cried itself hoarse with the cliché ‘Life without oil” and all states are looking towards agriculture as a revenue earner and its attributes of been labor intensive, the later would provide new required skills and soak up the army of labor that abounds in the state. The present administration inherited the Ministry of Agriculture and the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency, the former laden with bureaucrats and extension service providers, the latter with experts from the private sector and the multilateral agencies. The activities of these organs though not perfect had staff and facilities strewn all over the place like mills, farms, Equipment in the hinterlands. The present administration have ignored the huge potentials of this inheritance and have commenced the stripping of assets and subjected some of the staff to months without salaries in their home state until they went to the media.
In Rivers State today, fishing in the riverine areas is problematic due to the pollution from the activities of the artisanal refiners who daily pollute the rivers and creeks, while the farming communities in the upland areas cannot farm due to the activities of alternate governments or cult groups. Thus most of our food are imported from neighboring states and are now expensive. I speak as one who go to the market as I have customers at Oruworokwo, Rainbow and Mile one markets and I talk with them.
Whenever the beneficiaries of the State’s amnesty program are interviewed on radio, they always complain of unemployment and the need to be empowered , imagine if a deliberate program is put in place to at least feed the state, imagine the amount of labor that will be absorbed in this sector. The government can even resuscitate the now moribund Rivers State Marketing Board which was an agency that was an off taker for the excess produce from our farmers.
It is not too late and is achievable, Imagine if Governor Wike puts half the energy he puts on road inspection on his agricultural program, how the villagers will be hailing him whenever he visits the farms or agricultural facilities in their area as they do not have to migrate to Port Harcourt because commerce and food have come to them in their villages.
ROADS:
When Aba road was to be expanded in the early 80’s and the likes of late finance minister Victor Masi and other prominent National Party of Nigeria (NPN) members from the state pressured the federal government to extend the road to Boro Park in Port Harcourt metropolis.At that time there was no need for service lanes but houses were demolished to provide these service lanes. Can we imagine the chaos Port Harcourt would have been without an Aba road with service lanes?
In the light of this, I would appeal that the governor provide service lanes on the Airport thoroughfare that leads to Obiri ikwerre and pursue the road to link up with the Eagle island link road.
It would be nice that after the heavy investments on his roads that the cheapest furnishing be included, that is to ensure that the lanes are marked for ease of driving and parking. This furnishing is required all over the major roads in the town.
I will appeal that Monier Construction Company (MCC) be motivated to go and complete the asphalting of the Iwofe road and mark the lanes all the way to iwofe waterside.
INVESTOR’S DESTINATION:
The measurement for any governor of Rivers State by non-resident is the state of the city of Port Harcourt.
If you go to the Rivers State website and check out its Investment destination column, it simply defines the state of affairs saying “Awaiting Content” as at today August 15, 2017. The provision of the budgets for 2016 and 2017 are still not in the public space after 48 months, how do the supposed foreign investors assess the state and its potentials… maybe by divination.
As a state, beyond the budget, the state does not have an Economic Team nor does it have an expenditure framework upon which estimates and projections are made which in turn guide the overall fiscal direction beyond a single year. Beyond this, there is no articulated policy to transform the state to a knowledge-based economy. This is beyond brick and mortar, or sand and cement.
By the way, the elections ended 2 years ago and you will only see leaders of the PDP in the state with the Governor even during inspections instead of his ‘TEAM’ , who are members of his team ?
May I state that Wike cannot outspend Amaechi as the economic realities for now will not support such a desire, so a winning strategy will be to make Rivers State work so that the nation -- beyond politicians, will begin to speak about our Garden city in glowing lights as they do for Lagos today.
The beauty of Port Harcourt must be restored by ensuring orderly human and vehicular movement that eradicate the existing practice where all junctions are loading bays and parks. Open markets have overrun streets from Borokiri to Rumuokoro. Even after the commissioning of the new market and park at Rumokuro as at Saturday August 12,2017 nothing has changed as the junction is laden with traders, hawkers and touts. So, it is not about building things, it is about managing and running them.
We have lost Port Harcourt to the traders who stream in from Aba daily (Bonny,Niger and parts of Bnede Streets are now known as Aba line), hawking & street trading must become orderly for us to reclaim our city
I am aware that the current administration had to resort to expensive commercial loans to fund his signature projects thus it does not make sense for us to convert these expensive roads to receptacles for refuse , a bizarre act that the former Governor Fidelis Oyakilohme eradicated with the aid of the firm Sulo. The management of waste in the city can provide employment for teeming unemployed political followers and they will ensure our refuse are bagged and are paid to convey them to designated points for collection by the articulators. The absence of this have made the median of some major highways like Ikwerre road, Ada George road and even the new Alcon bridge to be used as dump sites by the people .
Rivers State can only become an investor’s destination only when its economic indices become internet friendly and the garden city status is restored ,if Governor Wike get it right with Port Harcourt , he will own bragging rights of surpassing his predecessors.
SPECIAL DUTIES:
I will use three incidents to add colour to my attempt to further elucidate my points namely :
1. The unpreparedness of the state despite the various nationwide warnings of impending flood in the year. When it rains feel free and check out Okija street, Omoku street, Olu Obasanjo road, the Building materials area and recently the Central Bank area all due to non-de-silting of the drains.
2. The fire incident of last week that saw lots of people rendered homeless in the Rumuolumeni area due to the inability of the fire service to douse the flames. I remember that early in the year State firemen had protested about the absence of facilities and operational equipment. The politicians scared them away. Is it not a shame that we inherited two fire stations and 50 years after we cannot maintain nor add any new ones, particularly in our local governments outside Port Harcourt?
3. My last reference will be the brewing crisis between Belema Community and Shell Petroleum Development Company, where the community, according to the state-owned newspaper Nigeria Tide, “The people regretted that the community has no potable drinking water, good road, health facility, and were marginalized from scholarship and employment opportunities.”
In as much as I think it is okay to ask SPDC to be socially responsible, I think it is the primary responsibility of the Rivers State government to provide portable drinking water for them.
The absence of an audit made it possible for this government after two years not to know that such a strategic host community has been without portable drinking water, definitely there will be other communities with such minor problems and in the absence of an oil company, who will be their fall guy like Shell?
Who can they report to, as most people around the governor are scared of him – from their body language (a phrase borrowed from the APC)?
There is no oil producing community in Rivers State after 50 years that can compare with Port Harcourt in any form. It is time for the budgeting process to become people-centric and a sizeable portion of the funds that accrue to the state from oil be expended on these communities bearing in mind that these communities will soon be abandoned as crude oil will no longer be required by the world.
4. Abeg make we go look the Rivers State Secretariat Complex na, no light sef.
I have done my part as a responsible citizen by providing pointers for the administration to rejig and raise the bar for posterity to be kind to them …and that is my prayer.
I don go hide under my stone joor; as the missiles begin to fly.
Eugene Abels