Tag: Amaechi

RIVERS State Governor and Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has said that his administration would need more funds from the state Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to complete ongoing projects in the state. He noted that it is the responsibility of the state Board of Internal Revenue to ensure that more funds accrue to the state from taxes and levies to assist the government in its expenditure. Amaechi spoke shortly after simultaneously swearing in the chairman of the State Board of Internal Revenue, Onene Osila Obele-Oshoko and three members of the State Judicial Service Commission (JSC). The three JSC members are Mr Tom Jackson Orage, Mr Tonye Lolomari and High Chief Ambrose Igbokwe Nwuzi. After the brief swearing-in and oath-taking ceremony, which held at the Executive Council Chambers of Government House, Port Harcourt on Friday, Governor Amaechi congratulated all the appointees and urged them to rededicate themselves to their responsibilities and service to the state. He recalled that the state revenue base jumped up shortly after he became governor of Rivers State and urged Onene Oshoko to plug all loopholes in tax payments to sustain the increase in IGR. “When we took over government, it was N2.5 billion in a month. We have gotten to N6 billion, and I hear we are doing an average of N8 billion now. It’s still not enough. Our recurrent expenditure has gone up to N8.9 billion, so we need to be able to make between N10 and N11 billion for the IGR to be able to at least handle our recurrent expenditure.

The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi has said insurgency, kidnapping and other social vices are the fallouts of poverty and unemployment in the land.

The governor spoke yesterday in Port Harcourt when the Senate Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation visited him at the Government House.

The committee was on a facility tour of Federal Government-owned corporations and agencies in the state.

Amaechi said his administration started creating jobs when he assumed office in 2007 by building over 140 primary health centres and over 300 model primary schools.

He said: “The current problem we are having in Nigeria is tied to poverty and unemployment. I believe that one solution to this insurgency is education and unemployment. The easiest employment is farming. This is because a large number of them are not educated and are unskilled.

“I applied it here in Rivers State and it worked. Most of them who were given guns by the former militants, when we asked them, they told us that their parents could not train them. That is why we introduced free education and free health care programmes. And it occurred to us that to address this problem, we needed social policing. While you are doing physical policing, you must also do social and economic policing.

“To do that, we started creating employment opportunities by building over 140 primary health care centres and over 300 model primary schools. If you visit these projects, there is no way you will not see at least 50 workers in each of the schools.”

The governor added: “We created the banana farms, which has created jobs for over 2,000 persons. We revived the Rison Palm. It was dead when we came, and it has employed over 5,000 workers.

“Also, the Songhai Farm has employed over 2,000 workers, while five fish farms in strategic locations have been completed. We have done all that to create jobs for our people.

“I am very sure that the establishment of farms will go a long way to reduce the recruitment of Boko Haram members. The Federal Government must take education, employment and reduction of poverty as priority. We do appreciate the challenges the Federal Government is facing now.”

The Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi has accused Labour leaders of frolicking about with politicians instead of protecting the interest of the suffering workers.

The governor also said most Nigerians were becoming helpless because the Federal Government was not effectively handling security matters.

Amaechi spoke yesterday at the Isaac Boro Park in Port Harcourt during the May Day celebration.

The governor urged Nigerians to rise against impunity.

He said: “The leaders of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) and the Nigeria labour Congress (NLC) know the problems; they know the solutions. But they do not want to go for the solutions. I do not know why and I do not know if they have compromised.

“There has never been any successful democracy in Nigeria without the contributions of the NLC and the TUC. Few Nigerians just sit and cart away our money and you think that we will not die of hunger! And because there is hunger in the land, there is bound to be violence. The fact that a few people are stealing the money in itself is social, economic and political violence.

“Today, all of us who are Labour leaders are junketing and enjoying with politicians. So, the poor masses are suffering because they have nobody to speak for them. They are voiceless and there is no leader to lead the voiceless. They are hungry and there is nobody to address their hunger.”

The governor  advised that Labour leaders be at the forefront of the struggle to ensure a better society, rather than being afraid of confronting those at the helm of affairs.

He said: “You, as Labour leaders, have not asked what we need to do to get this democracy working? Why is there impunity? Why are policemen being used against Nigerians? Why should Nigeria lose over 200 children and nobody is talking? It could be your turn.”

Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State said yesterday that he is through with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), irrespective of whether the Federal Government returns the state’s oil wells in Kalabari and Etche, ceded to neighbouring Bayelsa, Abia and Imo states, or not.

The governor, who spoke to reporters on the sideline of the inauguration of Port Harcourt as the World Book Capital 2014, vowed that he would not succumb to pressure from some PDP leaders to return to the “dead” party.

He did not name the PDP leaders.

The arrowhead of the opposition to the governor and the Supervising Minister of Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, had claimed recently that Amaechi and his allies were pleading to return to the PDP.

However, the Rivers governor said that Wike does not know what it means to be a minister.

Amaechi said yesterday: “I am not returning to the PDP. That man (Wike), they should check him whether he is okay. I have finished with the PDP. I have told them. I made a promise that if they return the Kalabari oil wells, we will see how it goes, but until that happens.

“Beyond the oil wells, I have told them, they have approached me. If they want, I will call the names of those that approached me, but that is not an issue. There are issues that are fundamentally different. If I am a progressive, it must be seen in the type of life I live, in what I do, how I relate with people and the type of governance.

“I said people should ignore him (Wike). Are you sure that if I tell the PDP that I am coming back in 10 days, they will not send a dance party here? One problem with leadership in Nigeria is that when you are a president, a governor or a minister, what you say must be factual. You cannot be part of gossip.

“So, that young man (Wike), who claims to be Minister of State for Education, who does not know what it means to be a minister, is saying I am begging to come back to the PDP. What is the PDP? I beg you, please, do not ever ask me question about that young man (Wike), because I will not answer you.”

Amaechi also stated that his administration’s initiative had moved from the Garden City Literary Festival to the Port Harcourt Book Festival and also moved on to contemplate establishing a book centre, worth N3.5 billion, not owned by the Rivers State government, but by a non-governmental organisation, the Garden City Literary Association

The NGF chairman stressed that his administration’s efforts in the education sector might be responsible for the nomination of Port Harcourt as the World Book Capital 2014.

The Rivers governor said: “The second transformation is, somewhere along line, she (Mrs. Koko Kalango, the Project Director of the Port Harcourt World Book Capital 2014) brought the idea of competing for the World Book Capital and I said, that will not be a bad idea.

“So, we funded her to compete and we won the nomination. It was wonderful that she did that. When she came to me and said we won, I now asked her what the World Book Capital is all about and she explained that it is like the Kane Festival by film makers and that is what it is to book readers.

“We budgeted nearly N4 billion for the World Book Capital. We are building libraries, but I call them reading rooms, in the city. They are about seven and we are having 23 in all the local government areas. We will equip and furnish the libraries.