The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Donald Duke

  • Questions Donald Duke must answer

    Former Governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke has been in the news lately. And this has to do with his claim that there are only two monkeys in Cross River State. He proceeded to name the two monkeys, insinuating that because these two companies are very active in the state, they are the only ones getting jobs in the state.

    A lot of us got giddy with excitement, hoping the former governor will go the whole hog and confess more, including the fact that his brother George Duke still enjoys business patronage in this state with juicy contracts that have been in place since his brother’s tenure, including management of the Millennium Park, Calabar, and maintenance of the Governor’s Office. So evidently the two monkeys’ theory was slightly embellished to distort the truth and cause ill-feelings amongst the public. Be that as it may, it is also common knowledge that one of the monkeys he mentioned; lilleker was in fact brought to the state by his administration.

    However, since this is a season of confessions, the poor people of Cross River State will like to know who the true owner or owners of Tinapa are?

    So sir, please is it true that at the stage of conceptualisation, the state executive council members were told that the project will be mostly private sector financed? If so, at what point did it become the state government affair, such that the state is indebted to the tune of about N80 billion because of this project alone?

    And if it is indeed owned by the state government, how come certain individuals and corporate organisations claim ownership of shares in Tinapa even when it has never been listed on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange?

    Another area where Cross River? people are seeking answers has to do with the status of the Children Hospital, Calabar. We know that the hospital belonged to the state, or so we were told.

    Who truly owns that hospital?

    Clarification has become necessary because at some point we began to hear that the Duke administration leased out the hospital to some individuals for 20 years? Yet another account claims that one family actually has the Certificate of Occupancy (C-of-O) to the property. Please sir, which of these accounts is the truth?

    This is what an online news portal, THE WILL wrote regarding that hospital.

    “THE WILL findings into Duke’s questionable disposal of state government assets while he was governor revealed that the state government owned former party office of the proscribed National Republican Convention (NRC) on Murtala Muhammed Highway, Calabar, which currently houses Women and Children Hospital and the former Nigerian Union of Journalists Press Centre, Diamond Hill, Calabar, which the former governor currently calls his Calabar residence… These choice assets are worth tens of millions of naira.

    “There are also others such as a hotel property off Marian Extension Road in Calabar bought with state government funds as a government hotel from the family of Mr. Mike Archibong but which has curiously become a privately owned hotel awaiting opening anytime soon.

    “The Cross River State House on Military Street, Onikan Lagos is another property that caught our attention…”

    “That Duke sold off a lot of government assets in the guise of raising funds for the state is no longer news, what is news however is that most of the properties sold especially the residential houses in Calabar were sold to cronies and associates…completely ignoring government’s owner occupier policy.

    Some indigenes however are not letting Mr. Duke get off so easily. There has been public outcry over Duke’s acquisition of public properties amongst Cross Riverians. A former governorship candidate in the state during the last election, James Ebri, the younger brother of former governor of the state, Clement Ebri, has gone to court to challenge Duke’s takeover of the former NRC party office.

    “Also joined in Ebri’s suit are the Cross River State government, state Attorney General, Commissioner for Lands and the Commissioner for Justice.

    “Justice E. O Eneji of the State High Court after listening to arguments granted an order “that an interim order shall and is hereby granted restraining the defendants/respondents from commissioning, inaugurating and opening of the Calabar Women and Children’s Hospital (CWCH) by any person whosoever, scheduled to hold on 28th May, 2010, at the Movie theatre, Calabar Women and Children’s Hospital, Cross River State or any other day pending the determination of the Motion on Notice.”

    ?Is there any iota of truth in the report by THE WILL?

    The iconic Metropolitan Hotel has since become Transcorp Hotel. And I must confess that services are miles better now.

    But tongues wagged when the ownership of the hotel changed hands during your tenure, why so?

    What about the oil palm estate in Ayib Eku, in Akamkpa Local Government Area? Can you respond to very weighty allegations made by Okoi Obono-Obla in a petition concerning land grab in Ekorinim?

    Not only that.

    Obla, a lawyer and member of the All Progressive Congress (APC) also claimed that your achievements as governor of Cross River are most times hyped. In his words, your so-called superlative performances were a fluke, and that your administration institutionalised ?the culture of impunity and corruption in Cross River.

    The last but not the least, is the issue of the ceding of Bakassi Peninsula through which certain individuals profited.

    Although it was not the fault of the state government when you were the governor that the Peninsula was ceded to Cameroon in the first place, there has been a lot of talk in town that two people benefitted from the adversity that befell the state. Is there any truth to this? If yes, who are these people?

    Thank you sir and may God bless you as you give light to these issues.

     

    • Mpkanam wrote from Calabar

  • No, not Donald Duke again!

    Donald Duke, a former governor of my dear state, Cross River, has been in political wilderness until last week Thursday.

    The political organisation of Mr Goddy Agba had organised a reception for their governorship aspirant, which was beamed live on AIT.

    Always a show man, Duke seized the opportunity in an attempt to launch himself back into reckoning.

    His speech at the event brought back memories of the bad politics and misadventure that characterised his tenure as governor of the state. Memories that many of us wish would stay buried forever and never to resurrect again.

    The Donald Duke brand has been one of the most disingenuous marketing feats in the history of our country, exemplified by the long running advert of Tinapa on CNN and NTA, which is now a subject of investigation by the ICPC.

    The image created by his publicists for the public is completely at variance with what he truly is: a narcissist.

    Due to his style of governance, Cross River State became a theatre of political violence, polarising the state along ethnic lines, leading to the emergence of groups such as the Atam’s People Congress, with the sole aim of battling the establishment.

    Of course, the violence that characterised Duke’s re-election in 2003 remains the bloodiest in the annals of the state. There were attendant political killings and disenfranchisement of voters.

    As an incumbent governor, Duke’s campaign team could not go beyond Akamkpa for days as protesting armed youths engaged his security team in duel of carnage.

    There was also his unending battles with local government chairmen, who insisted on asserting their independence.

    The face-off led to the harassment, arrest and subsequent jailing of some of the chairmen including Hon Daniel Asuquo, now a member of the House of Representatives and late Prince Eyo Okon Eyo, who died few weeks after being released from jail.

    Duke’s faceoff with his Deputy, John Okpa further heightened political tension in the state. The governor had his way as Okpa was eventually impeached by the state House of Assembly.

    Under Duke’s administration, the civil service withered. For 8 years, there was no single employment into the civil service just as no civil servant got promotion.

    The education sector was comatose , with the state ranked amongst educationally disadvantaged states.

    That administration also left behind a suffocating debt burden, which has now become an albatross.

    So, why this deep reflection?

    As the sponsored program on AIT fast concluded with remarks by new found ‘faithfuls,’ I was left scratching my head in search of less half-truths and political innuendos.

    With my mind fed with no clear cut plans on how to move the state to the colloquial sounding ‘next level,’ I had been fed with cheap political pot-shots for close to an hour without fundamental fears and nagging questions addressed, besides mere rhetoric.

    But then again, I am not a politician in the strict sense of it. I am simply a Cross Riverian, who is simply grateful to God for the semblance of peace, stability and progress we have enjoyed in the state over the last few years.

    For a neutral with no particular affinity except wanting to see my state progress, I am more worried about what Mr. Duke and his partners again have to offer the state and its people.

     

    •Peter Akabom wrote in from Akpabuyo, Cross River State

  • Why Fayose’s ambition is dead on arrival

    SIR: When Donald Duke was sworn in as Governor of Cross Rivers State on May 29, 1999, he was unquestionably one of the youngest democratic governors the state and even the Nigerian nation had seen so far.  To the admiration of all, he was able to comport himself in a very dignifying manner in the course of his term of office. He attained the age of wisdom, 40, after he was through with his first term and deservedly, earned the second term in office.

    On May 29, 2003, exactly four years after Duke’s first term, on the other side of the country, Ayo Fayose was being sworn in as the Governor of Ekiti State. At the time of his swearing in, he was 43 years old.

    Throughout the over three years of his turbulent rule, it was one battle or rumours of battles or the other at the expense of good governance. Either the Governor was throwing expletives on the First Class traditional rulers like Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Elekole of Ikole, or threatening kings who failed to do his bidding with deposition or even being rumoured to have locked one of the traditional rulers in the state in the booth of a car. He was also always busy abusing, harassing or assaulting the revered leaders in the state who had made their marks in their area of human endeavour before he was born or at most when he was still a pupil in an elementary school. In that class of men who were not spared was Chief J. E. Babatola, a Minister in the First Republic, Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, Justice Olakunle Olatawura, Justice Edward Ojuolape, Dr. Bode Olowoporoku, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN and a host of others.

    The other category consisted of men who were not necessarily politicians, but whose personalities and profile were considered to be political threats to the governorship of Fayose. Somehow, these consisted of men who had made a mark in their field of endeavour and who had the qualification and right to be governor of the state. This category included, but not limited, to men like Femi Falana, SAN, Segun Oni, Kayode Fayemi and Dr. Daramola, a United Nations consultant among others. Most of the people in this category were hounded out of town but unfortunately, Daramola was assassinated and the security forces are yet to unravel the facts of his assassination.

    The government of Ayo Fayose got to its lowest ebb when it graduated from government of mediocrity and brutality to the realm of direct and brazen stealing of the state’s meagre resources. At the end of the day, Mr. Fayose was impeached and like a thief at night, was smuggled out of the state under the covers of darkness.

    Lately, Fayose has been going around in Ekiti campaigning to have another bite on the governorship of Ekiti State and in a manner of conceding to the puerile nature of his truncated regime, he came back on his knees claiming to have changed. He claims that Ayo Fayose of 2003 is not the Ayo Fayose of 2014 and that his misdeeds of the former time were informed by his tender age.

    The relevant question at this point is whether at mid-forties Fayose was really too young to be thoughtful and to exercise discretion that was needed for the office he occupied? If he has truly changed as he claims now, when, between then and now, did he learn decency and discretion?

    Can the Ekiti people afford to use the future of their children to gamble and investigate if a self confessed fool at 45 is truly no longer a fool?

    Can decency, decorum and good manners be learnt at over 50? What then happens to the saying that a man does not learn how to be left handed in his old age?

    The office of the governor is not a learning field and neither is it a testing ground. Rather than subject the office and destiny of its people to test whether a person has changed from his old offensive ways and manners, it would be suggested that the government should set up a rehabilitation centre where social derelicts could be rehabilitated. This will make us test and access how and if men could truly change in their old age!

    • Soji Olowolafe

    Abuja.    

     

  • Myma Bello-Osagie marks 60

    Myma Bello-Osagie marks 60

    IT was a convergence of Nigeria’s crème de la crème at the Oriental Hotel, Lagos, as Myma, the beautiful wife of Hakeem Bello-Osagie, celebrated her 60th birthday. From Aliko Dangote, Femi Otedola and Tony Elumelu, Governor Liyel Imoke to former Cross River State, Governor Donald Duke, Governor Godswill Akpabio, Jim Ovia, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, John Edozien and many more, prominent Nigerians from all walks of life showed up.

    Dr Myma Bello-Osagie ,a seasoned lawyer, currently serves as senior partner of Udo Udoma & Belo-Osagie, one of the leading law firms in Nigeria. She also heads its telecommunications and oil & gas teams. Her areas of specialisation include corporate restructuring, acquisitions, foreign investment, regulatory communications and equity financing.

    Highly rated for her works, she also sits on the board of various companies and acts as a trustee on the board of several non-profit making organisations, including the African Leadership Foundation, the African Wildlife Foundation and the Art and Business Foundation. She is also reputed as an avid art collector.

  • U.K. considers raising pension age to 68 by Mid-2030s

    Prime Minister David Cameron’s government may bring forward an increase in the age at which Britons take their pensions by a decade as life expectancy rises.

    The government said in a statement that the planned age increase to 68, originally estimated to be introduced in 2046, may be brought forward to the mid-2030s, and the pension age could rise to 69 by the late 2040s.

    The changes will affect people currently in their 40s or younger and will save about 400 billion pounds, it said.

    According to the announcement issued before Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s Autumn Statement to Parliament, the government will use the principle that people should spend, on average, up to one third of their adult lives in retirement to inform future changes in the state pension age. This is part of the government’s long-term economic plan to secure a responsible recovery.

    Proposals to raise the age at which Britons are eligible for a state pension were first brought in last year. The Pensions Bill, currently being debated in the House of Lords, is likely to become law early next year. It will also introduce a single-tier pension to replace the current basic means-tested allowance.

  • Donald Duke still on sabbatical

    Donald Duke still on sabbatical

    Almost six years after he left office as the Governor of Cross Rivers State and decided to take a break from politics, Mr. Donald Duke is still not keen on staging a comeback to the political turf. The ex-governor, it was learnt, remain unconvinced about the direction his party, PDP, is headed and would rather prefer to watch events from the sidelines. The only major political event Duke has attended after he left office five years ago was the second term declaration of his successor, Liyel Imoke, held at the U.J Esuene Stadium in Calabar. This gesture, we gathered, was after much pressure from his friends and political associates.