GOVERNOR Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State Saturday took the fight to underperforming minister of the Niger Delta, Mr. Godsday Orubebe, and other snipping presidential appointees who are accusing him of being corrupt and nursing a presidential ambition, by demanding a public debate with them over infrastructural development and good governance in general.
Rotimi Amaechi, who spoke with sharpedgenews.com and other news organizations in Houston, Texas in the United States, where he held an investment forum and town hall meeting with indigenes of Rivers State and generality of Nigerians, at intervals accused Orubebe of being an abysmal failure in the discharge of oversight functions, challenging him to provide proof of the allegation of corruption leveled against his person.
Governor Amaechi said that Orubebe would not have anything to showcase despite spending almost four years as minister in charge of Nigeria Delta, and that in case he does find anything to showcase, he would match him with ten completed projects for every one the minister mentions.
He said that if Orubebe is tired of staying focused on the job and performing on his mandate as the minister of Niger Delta Affairs, he should resign. According to the governor, Orubebe was one of the government functionaries who benefitted from the Niger Delta insurgency which he said was mostly fanned by crooks and criminals with specialty in kidnapping. Amaechi also said that Orubebe was nominated by those once held Nigeria to ransom, and that that is the tragedy of it all.
The governor reminded the people of Rivers State and Nigerians in general not to forget in a hurry how bad things were in terms of security challenges and teachable developmental standards before he came into office.
“There were times they wanted us to negotiate with hostage-takers, but I refused,” the governor said, adding that he “made adequate funds for procurement of security gadgets and personnel backed Israeli consultants. And any time they kidnap any of our people, we launch after them, pin them to their fortresses and creeks and smoke them out.
“They always beg for mercy and we always refuse to settle them with money. In the past, they collect between 200 million and 300 million before releasing their hostages. These days, we do not negotiate with them and because of that they call me all sorts of names.
“Hostage-taking is no longer a thriving business in Rivers State. They and their godfathers do not like that fact. They write and blog lies all the time, because they cannot match us in terms of quantifiable service delivery and fulfillment of electoral promises.”
Amaechi said that the success of Rivers State has impacted on the relative peace being enjoyed by neighboring states. Specifically, he said, the apprehension of the kidnappers of actress Nkiru Sylvanus in Imo State was planned and executed by an anti-terrorist squad financed, kitted and trained by Rivers State government.
According to the governor, up till the point of where they had actionable intelligence on the police constable who was the mastermind of the crime, he had all the facts of the operations because the sophisticated equipments from Rivers State was able to track the phone conversations and their real hideout.
The governor said that when he was at a private meeting with the governor of Imo State, the state where the crime of Ms. Sylvanus’ kidnap was committed, he did not divulge any details of the operation as the security of the operation was paramount.
Amaechi maintained the radical view that it is impeachable for an elected official to fail in terms of providing security for citizens and the state.
“The first offense governors commit is when they are unable to provide adequate security to their people.
“The first oath taken by elected leaders is to protect life and property. It is the responsibility of the government to provide security to the people,” Amaechi said at a town hall meeting with indigenes of the state living in the U.S on Sunday.
“I hate to see people building high fences in the name of providing themselves with security,’’ Amaechi said, stressing that it was as a result to that, that his administration achieved remarkable milestones in maintaining law and order by adopting zero-tolerance attitude towards social vices.
The governor noted that he would continue to motivate, train and retrain the police force and other security agents in the state on crime prevention and detection.
He disclosed that the state had established a centralized rapid response call control centre with state-of-the-art equipment and helicopters for effective monitoring.
Mr. Amaechi also addressed the notion that he is at loggerheads with President Goodluck Jonathan, saying he was never in confrontation with the president.
“I am not confrontation to the president. In the past we used to get 27 billion naira because they took our oil wealth. Now we get 16 billion naira every month.
“We have been talking to Kalabari people to resist every provocation. It is my duty to guarantee the peace. I was voted in as Governor of Rivers State. It is not proper to rob my people and then they expect me not to talk. They should stop taking away the resources of Rivers State. They should stop robbing us.
He disclosed that about N6 billion are been spent yearly on 300 students awarded university scholarship to study abroad, stressing that the scholarship was initially started with N1 billion.
On whether he had interest to contest for the presidency in 2015, the governor said that the assignment he had for now was to govern Rivers State.
“If any other person thinks this man has ambitious, it is that person’s business. The constitution of Nigeria stipulates on what qualifies anybody to have ambitious. So if that is the reason for which Rivers State is being denied everything, too bad.
“I have said it, they don’t like Rivers State. If they like Rivers State, they should show us evidence that they like Rivers State. Everything that comes to Rivers State they have taken away. I have said it to the president.
“Even ordinary wavers for security helicopters, agricultural materials, they wouldn’t grant the state. Anything we applied for they will never approve. There is nothing we applied for that we have successfully gotten, absolutely nothing.
“It is not that the president is bad, the president is absolutely a good man, but those people around the president continue to give that impression of hatred and dislike because that is how they will succeed and make their money,’’ Amaechi said.
Governor Amaechi is one of the front liners amongst Nigeria’s elected officials in terms of quantifiable service delivery, good governance, infrastructural development socially relevant spending.