– Denies Being Hospitalized in London
AFTER spending approximately three weeks out of the country, Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson returned to Nigeria on Sunday, dispelling notions that he suffered any health challenges that may have necessitated the extended trip away from home.
Governor Dickson said he was never hospitalized in London, but added that he often takes advantages of yearly summer trips outside the country to do health checks.
“I was never hospitalized in London,” the Governor Dickson said, leaving curious reporters wondering if he was hospitalized elsewhere, if not London.
“Hon. Henry Seriake Dickson is as fit as fiddle by the grace of God,” the governor said, adding that he refuses to be distracted by stories about his health, and that his government is aware that false stories are being spread about him.
“This is no time for distraction and we know those who are spreading this because they are seeing us doing what they couldn’t do for five years.
Mr. Dickson said his “very fruitful trip” abroad was inspired by the need to bring business to Bayelsa and help the state’s economy, saying his ambition was to put Bayelsa State on the world economic map.
“That means the Bayelsa Development Corporation must have an international headquarters in London, which is the financial capital of the world.
“In the next one or two months, the Bayelsa Development Corporation will be fully launched in London.”
He said that the management board and committee for the corporation would be announced in a few days time.
“We will have an international luncheon and sell the state to the international community and the world at large.
News of the governor’s arrival from his extended trip abroad hardly settled before reports of his decision to honor convicted felon and predecessor, former Governor Diepreye Alamieyesheigha, got tongues wagging on Monday morning.
In a state-wide radio broadcast to commemorate the state’s creation alongside the national independence holiday, Governor Dickson said an auditorium in the state-funded Ijaw National Congress secretariat will be named after Mr. Alamieyeseigha, who was the first civilian governor of the state.
On July 26, 2007, Alamieyeseigha pled guilty before a Nigerian court to six charges and was sentenced to two years in prison on each charge; however, because the sentences were set to run concurrently and the time was counted from the point of his arrest nearly two years before the sentences, his actual sentence was relatively short. Many of his assets were ordered to be forfeited to the Bayelsa state government.
Governor Alamieyeseigha had been previously been detained in London on charges of money laundering in September 2005. At the time of his arrest, Metropolitan police found about £1m in cash in his London home. Later they found a total of £1.8m ($3.2m) in cash and bank accounts.
On June 28 this year, United States Department of Justice announced that it had executed an asset forfeiture order on $401,931 in a Massachusetts brokerage fund, traceable to Alamieyeseigha.
US prosecutors had filed court papers in April 2011 targeting the Massachusetts brokerage fund and a $600,000 Maryland home, which they alleged were the proceeds of corruption.
The Seriake Dickson administration in Bayelsa State however is not bothered by Mr. Alamieyeseigha’s poor record with law enforcement in Nigeria and elsewhere in world, as it went ahead to honor him on Monday, describing Alamieyeseigha, who still enjoys unfettered access to President Jonathan in Abuja, as a “pillar” of Bayelsa.
Also similarly honored on Monday is the late General Sanni Abacha, who earned worldwide notoriety for similar large-scale theft of public funds as Alamieyeseigha.
Mr. Abacha died in office as he schemed to transmute into a civilian head of state, having manipulated the instrument of his power towards what many saw as a plan towards permanent rule. But for his death in shady circumstances in 1998, the dictator was all but set to install himself as a permanent ruler.
The latest development follows a widely-lampooned decision of Governor Dickson to appoint First Lady Patience Jonathan as a portfolio-free permanent secretary. Against all public outcry, the governor stood by his decision and the Mrs. Jonathan remains a member of the Bayelsa State government as of the time of filing this report.