The dusts raised by Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike’s revelation on the payment of 13 per cent derivation to core oil producing states would take a longer time to settle.

Wike, who stirred the hornets’ nest, took on one of the Niger Delta governors over remarks on the application of what accrued to the states as derivation.

Drawing a battle line, the Rivers’ helmsman did not name any governor.

But his counterpart Governor Douye Diri recently said that the cost of construction in a difficult terrain like Bayelsa State could was three times or more times the cost elsewhere.

Wike said that one of his colleagues while trying to justify how he utilised his state’s share of the money remarked that the cost of constructing a three-kilometre road in his state was enough to deliver 15 flyovers.

He spoke yesterday at the inauguration of a Renal Centre and House Officers Quarters built and equipped by his administration at the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital (RSUTH).

The governor promised to reply the unnamed governor for saying that the cost of a road project could be three times bigger than that of four flyovers in other states in the region.

Wike said: “One of the governors who I will soon reply because I have the capacity to reply any of them. Simply because I said people should thank President Muhammadu Buhari for releasing 13 per cent arrears to some Niger Delta governors.

“I didn’t abuse any of them. I said thank him because if he did not release these arrears to me and some of our states, it would have been difficult for me to talk about building a renal centre, Cardiovascular Centre, basic and clinical sciences, house officers’ quarters and many of them.

“I don’t think saying ‘thank you’ is an offence. On television I heard one of the governors say in his state to do three-kilometre road will do more than 15 flyovers. Rivers is it not a Niger Delta State? Don’t we have riverine areas in Rivers.

“The Amayanabo of Opobo said since he was born he had never driven on the road to Opobo. The day he drove to Opobo he said ‘God is it possible that in my own time I am not going through the river again, I can now drive to Opobo?

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“That is a major riverine area. By the grace of God this December we are going to inaugurate the first phase of Trans-Kalabari road. It is a major riverine area. I don’t know why some people are sick about my flyovers. Don’t be sick again, I won’t do again.

“Instead of you to appreciate and ask someone how are you doing this? I have turned the state capital around using a major construction company. If you know you have the capacity go and hire that company and see whether you can pay salaries.

“People know the contractors I use in this state. Some of them nobody knows their contractors. Who are they? Now you have touched me, anything you see you take”.

Wike identified the intractable insecurity situation as one reason most professionals leave the shores of the country in droves for greener pastures.

He maintained that welfare of doctors and other professionals were not primarily the sole reasons for brain drain in the country.

The governor noted that because of the looming unemployment situation in the country, most people sought job opportunities outside of Nigeria.

He said: “When you talk about brain drain, it is not only associated with the medical profession. So, many people leave this country because of unemployment. So many people have left this country because of insecurity. So many people have left this country because where they work the equipment is not there.

“It is not only just because of welfare; that is why you see brain drain, no. It is not correct. Even professors in the university in the various faculties of law, faculties of engineering most of them leave because the tools to work are not there.

“But you are lucky you (RSUTH staff) have the tools here. So, clap for us first that we have provided the basic things. Today, you’re lucky, you’re working in a teaching hospital where you can find the equipment, at least, to make your job easier for you. So, it is not as bad as where the equipment are not there.”

Wike said he was determined in creating the space for medical education that led to the establishment of medical college at the Rivers State University (RSU), which hitherto was not in existence before he assumed office.

He said: “To tell you it is not just flyovers, look at the health sector alone. As at the time we came , this State had no medical college, only the University of Port Harcourt had, and you see how competitive being a federal university. How many of our people get admission to read medicine and other related courses.”

He said about 100 students of Rivers origin were at the PAMO University of Medical Sciences on state government scholarship, and who upon graduation would gain automatic employment into government establishments.

Wike said while equipment were provided and medical facilities upgraded, the manpower gap was also being filled.

The governor maintained that the current congestion experienced at the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital (RSUTH) was being addressed.

He explained that in the coming days, the Gynecology department would move to the Mother and Child Hospital with other departments moving to their dedicated facilities like the Maxillofacial and Kersely Harrison Hospital.

Speaking on the projects, Wike urged Nigerians to seek medical assistance from the Renal Centre because it had the best equipment and personnel to offer requisite services.

He said there was already an ongoing arrangement to effectively manage the centre to ensure sustainability.

Wike further advised the house officers to imbibe maintenance culture so that they could always keep the quarters clean and maintain the structure.

In his speech, Chief Medical Director of Rivers State University Teaching Hospital, Dr. Friday Aaron said the two projects inaugurated were signature of the genuine love of governor Wike for the state.

Aaron recalled that the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) was already constructing a Renal Dialysis Unit and Wike noticed that if allowed in its form, its services would be limited.

The CMD said Wike directed an expansion of the unit into a world class centre that would diagnose renal cases, perform dialysis and do transplant of kidney insisting that Rivers people deserved the best.

Health Commissioner, Prof. Princewill Chike said the Renal Centre was one of the best in Nigeria that had been provided by Wike for his love for the health sector.

The centre said is storey building that has a  lift that can take 13 person per time with other facilities such as  doctors and nurses call rooms, water treatment unit, and a six-bed space dialysis area.

Prof. Chike said the first floor comprises   two theatres for kidney donor and recipient with equipment to ensure the marching of the kidney.

He said the second theatre is where the transplanting of the kidney is done and the situation properly monitored adding that there is 100kv standby generating set and 30 kva inverter with six solar plates to ensure regular power supply.

The chairman, Nigeria Medical Association, Dr. Ebi Robinson commended governor Wike for building the Renal centre and equipping it with latest state of the art medical equipment that will enhance the productivity of doctors in the hospital.

• Governors building airports, flyovers, investing in projects with no economic impact’

States are to blame for rising poverty in the land, Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clement Agba, said  yesterday.

They have not done enough to complement social intervention initiatives aimed at reducing poverty, the minister claimed.

He further accused the governors of misdirecting resources to projects that have no direct bearing on the people.

The governors were also accused of being fond of citing eye-catching projects in the state capitals rather than deploying resources to rural access and poverty reduction.

States with the poorest people, the minister said, are Sokoto and Bayelsa – the latter more significantly so, being an oil producer.

Agba spoke with reporters after the week’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja.

He was responding to a question on what he and the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, were doing to ameliorate the biting hardship.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had said 65 per cent of poor people (86 million) are in the north; while nearly 35 per cent (about 47 million), live in the South.

It said the poverty situation needed to be addressed in each zone, adding that approximately 70 per cent of the population live in rural areas where 80 per cent of the poor are.

NBS advised that investing in rural areas is essential in reducing multidimensional poverty, which it said is lower in urban areas.

Agba dismissed the notion that rising levels of hunger and lack were peculiar to Nigeria.

He noted that the Federal Government, through many of its social security programmes, had been dedicating resources to alleviating hardship.

According to Agba, 72 per cent of the poverty in Nigeria is found in the rural areas, which he said had been abandoned by governors.

The minister said the state executives prefer to function in the state capitals.

Read Also: Nigeria and the pincers of poverty

He said the governors concentrate on building flyovers, airports and other projects that are visible in the state capitals rather than investing in areas that directly uplift the standard of life of the people.

Agba’s claim about airports is not farfetched. Many state governments are involved in the construction of airports.

While some have completed the air transport infrastructure, projects are currently ongoing in others.

Completed airports are in Delta, Akwa Ibom, Jigawa, Kebbi, Taraba, Anambra, Ekiti, Bayelsa and Gombe.

Airports projects are ongoing in Ogun, Ebonyi, Yobe, Zamfara, Nasarawa Cross River, Edo, Lagos, Kogi and Abia.

Agba also pointed out that while governors are in charge of land for agriculture, they do not harness them for productive purposes.

He advised the state chief executives to focus on initiatives that can pull the majority of the people out of poverty rather than concentrate on the building of skyscrapers, flyovers and bridges.

The minister said: “The question was, what is the Minister of Finance and I doing with regards to hardship in Nigeria, right? So, the suggestion is that both of us are the ones creating the hardship and for us to resolve it.

“I returned this morning from Brussels…. What was the deliberation on? It was basically on food and energy crises. I think that it’s always good for us to put things in their right perspectives.

“When you say government, we should be able to specify which government we are talking about.

“Is it the Federal Government? Is it a state government or is it a local government, because we all have different responsibilities?

“Last year, we started some work on the multi-dimensional poverty index, for which we recently released the report and it was launched by Mr. President.

“In the past, we’ve always looked at monetary poverty, but poverty, as we know, has different pieces, different intensity and different causes.

“I went around the 109 senatorial districts in Nigeria to carry out the survey and to be able to say specifically, where this hardship is.

“The result clearly showed that 72 per cent of poverty is in the rural areas. It also showed clearly, that Sokoto State is leading in poverty with 91 per cent.

“But the surprising one is Bayelsa, being the second in terms of poverty rating in the country.

“So, you see the issue is not about the availability of money, but it has to do with the application of money.”

Agba said in designing the national development plan, the Federal Government considered why previous plans failed.

“At the federal level, the government is putting in so much money in alleviating poverty with little result, which is one of the reasons the government also put in place the National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy.

“If the Federal Government puts the entire income that it earns into all of this without some form of complementarity from the state governments in playing their part, it will seem as if we are throwing money in the pond.

“The governors basically are only functioning in their state capitals. The democracy that we preach about is delivering the greatest good to the greatest number of people.

“From our demographic, it shows that the greatest number of our people live in rural areas, but the governors are not working in the rural areas.

“Right now 70 per cent of our people live in rural areas; they produce 90 per cent of what we eat.

“Unfortunately, 60 per cent of what they produce is lost post-harvest and it does not get to the market.

“When we’re talking about food prices as driving inflation, prices of food at the farm gates are low.

“But when you now take it to the urban areas, you find out that the prices are high due to supply chain disruptions and lack of infrastructure to take them there.

“I think from the Federal Government side, we are doing our best, but we need to push that governors should not continue to compete to take loans to build airports that are not necessary when they have other airports so close to them.

“Governors now are competing to build flyovers all over the place and we applaud them.

“They should concentrate on building rural roads so that the farmer can at least get their products to the market.

“If they do that and with the new policy in the national development plan on taking power to the rural areas, especially out-grid power that can easily be put, you begin to attract industries to those areas for value addition.”

Agba quoted a United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) report showing that small businesses employ 70 per cent of the working populace.

“So, you can imagine how much progress we will make when you have roads and power in these rural areas.

“In terms of agriculture, the Federal Government doesn’t have land to plant on.

“The government has pushed for the Anchor Borrowers programme and that is going on very well but the states control lands. They are the ones to provide land for agriculture. They are not investing in that.

“They would rather build skyscrapers in a city where people will see and clap but the skyscrapers do not put food on the table.

“Like I always say, if you look at Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you have to take care of the basic needs of individuals first before you begin to talk about self-actualisation.

“So, we need to take care of the issues of food, nutrition, housing and clothing for our people before we begin to think of how to go to the moon and begin to build flyovers and airports in the state capital.

“That is the missing link which we need to push so that we’ll be able to catalyse growth.

“You asked what the Federal Government or my sister, Zainab and I are doing? We are doing our part.

“(Rivers State Governor Nyesom) Wike told you guys about monies that have been released, over N500 billion, to the oil-producing states.

“I’ve seen some disclaimers from the states saying it is small money they are getting monthly and some are giving some half-truths of what they have received.

“We need to hold them accountable so that together we all can grow our economy,” the minister said.

The Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) could not be reached for comments.

Its spokesman, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, did not respond to messages sent to his WhatsApp.

• Subject BVAS to integrity test, Anyim urges commission

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has restated its stand that the use of the Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) is mandatory for the 2023 general election.

The commission said no voter would be allowed to vote without the PVC, adding that eligible voters would provide their PVCs at voting points before they would be allowed to vote, in line with the provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act.

INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, announced this at an induction retreat for new Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC) in Lagos.

The INEC boss urged the electorate to disregard misleading statement shared online, which claimed that voters could vote on Election Day without the PVC.

He stressed that nothing has changed about the commission’s “no PVC, no voting” policy.

Yakubu said: “Let me seize this opportunity to comment on two issues. First is the misleading statement shared online that voters can vote on Election Day without the voter’s card. This is absolutely incorrect. For any person to vote in any election organised by the commission, he or she must be a registered voter issued with a PVC.

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“The commission has consistently maintained the policy of ‘no PVC, no voting’. Nothing has changed. It is a legal requirement, and doing otherwise will be a violation of the law. I appeal to Nigerians to ignore any suggestion to the contrary.

“For the avoidance of doubt, Section 47(1) of the Electoral Act 2022 provides that ‘a person intending to vote in an election shall present himself with his voter’s card to a Presiding Officer for accreditation at the Polling Unit in the constituency in which his name is registered’.

“Therefore, the position of the law is clear. The PVC remains a mandatory requirement for voting during elections.”

Also, a former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim, has urged the INEC to subject the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to a third party evaluation to ensure it meets standards and integrity.

This, he said, would enable the INEC to be free from interference and for Nigeria to achieve free, fair and credible elections.

Anyim spoke yesterday while delivering a keynote address at the Political Parties’ Summit organised by the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) and the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS).

He said the INEC’s introduction of BVAS and Election Result Viewing Portal (IReV) have largely arrested most of the challenges that previously promoted electoral fraud during elections.

While commending INEC for introducing the technologies, he said: “I must note that there had been calls that INEC should subject the BVAS to third party evaluation to ensure it meets standard and integrity. I think this call is in the right direction because justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done.”

• Malami, Umannah lead selection team 

• Wike, Uzodimma lead charge to stop confirmation of nominees 

• How Tony Elumelu fixed Owo crony as EDP 

Fresh facts have shown that President Muhammadu Buhari did not consult none of the governors of the nine oil-producing states in the nomination of the substantive board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

A top source in the Presidency said the team that drove the processes which culminated in the appointment of the new NDDC board, especially its chairman, managing director as well as the two executive director positions, were led by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Umannah Okon Umannah, and his Justice counterpart, Abubakar Malami (SAN).

In a letter yesterday, the President urged the Senate to confirm the nomination of his Special Assistant on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie, for appointment as the substantive Chairman of the NDDC.

The President also nominated others, including Chief Samuel Ogbuku as Managing Director, into the board.

The NDDC board nominees, according to the letter, are: Laureta Ifeanyi Onochie (Delta, Southsouth) Chairman; Dimgba Erugba (state representative, Abia, Southeast); Dr. Ene Wilcox (Akwa Ibom, State Representative, Southsouth); Dr. Pius Odudu (Edo, Southsouth); Gbenga Edema (Ondo, Southwest) and Anthony Ekene (Imo, Southeast).

Also on the board list are: Mr. Onyekachi Dimgba (Rivers, Southsouth); Alhaji Mohammed Kabiru Abubakar (zonal representative, Nasarawa); Professor Tallen Mamma, SAN (Northeast representative, Adamawa); Sodique Sani (Northwest, zonal representative); General Charles Ehigie Airhiavbere, retd., (Executive Director of Finance) and Charles Ogunmola (Executive Director, Project, Southwest).

It was gathered that most of the nominees, particularly those in the management team, did not have the input of the governors from the oil producing region.

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The source said the reason the governors were not carried along was for the “NDDC to be partially insulated from politics”.

But some of the nominations might have political hurdles to scale.

Rivers and Imo Governors Nyesom Wike and Hope Uzodimma are said to be leading the move to stop the two executive directors from being cleared and confirmed by the Senate.

For instance, while the commission’s chairmanship nominee was directly put there by the President, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, was said to be behind the nomination of Ogbuku as Managing Director.

Ogbuku was Chief of Staff to Sylva when he was governor of Bayelsa State.

In the case of the nominee for the position of Executive Director, Finance and Administration, Maj.-Gen. Charles Airhiavbere (retd.), his service colleague, was said to have propped him while the founder of United Bank for Africa (UBA) Group, Tony Elumelu, recommended Ogunmola for the position of Executive Director, Project.

Ogunmola is from Owo, a non-oil-producing local government area of Ondo State, and Managing Director of Redtech, an infrastructure finance firm reportedly co-owned by Elumelu.

According to the source, the President was determined to discontinue the perception that the NDDC was a “breeding ground for governorship aspirants and candidates”.

The source added: “Looking at the history of the NDDC, it has always become a breeding ground for governorship aspirants and candidates. So, while Mr. President personally chose the chairman, the MD will going to Bayelsa for Sylva to recommend someone.

“But then, there came the thought that there must be someone who, at least, would settle down and get the job done. It was at that point Ogunmola was strongly recommended by someone with whom he had had a strong business relationship with certified records of performance.”

But the official, who craved anonymity, put the blame on the supervising minister.

The official confided in a team of reporters that the President relied on the recommendations of the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Umannah Okon Umannah, in his decision and ultimate nominations to the Senate.

“It’s quite unfortunate that the minister did not recommend persons from the mandate areas. It has been discovered to be so, and this is very bad. It paints Mr. President in a very bad light and this is not good at all.

“As the minister in charge, he ought to have known that the law or Act will be followed to the letters by the Senate. But as it is, there are various options open to the President because although he has already been briefed, he can no longer withdraw the letter sent to the Senate.

“It is now left for the people so concerned to approach the Senate and convince the body to do what they consider to be in tandem with the NDDC Act. This is because unless the Senate wants to do otherwise, the Act is clear.

“Alternatively, they can approach the appropriate law courts to seek redress, if the Senate ignores them and goes ahead to approve such persons considered as aliens to the mandate areas. That is the only way out, because Mr. President will not withdraw his nominations.

“But the Ondo people protesting should know that they are merely aiding the efforts of the governors of Rivers and Imo states who have made strong cases individually against Ondo State. If the protests of the people succeed, they should know that the EDP position won’t remain in Ondo State.”