The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Nyesom Wike

  • Jonathan intervenes to stop polytechnics strike

    President Goodluck Jonathan last Monday commenced direct intervention to resolve  grey areas in negotiations with  the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), after its leaders rejected the two installmental  payment options.
     
    ASUP President, Mr. Chibuzor Asomugha told The Nation that the Supervising Minister of Education, Barrister Nyesom Wike had comprehensively briefed the President on the remaining area of dispute, which is the installmental payment of arrears of allowances.
     
    Asomugha said in an interview  that Jonathan last Monday met alongside Presidential officials, the Supervising Minister of Education and officials of National Board for Technical Education, NBTE, and National Commission for Colleges of Education, NCCE and Federal Ministry of Education to finally conclude plans on the payment of the said arrears.
     
    ASUP and COEASU have insisted that the Federal Government pay the entire N40billion at once.
    It was gathered that at the last meeting the Supervising Minister of Education in a bid to convince the union showed  the payment schedule for ASUU earned allowances which are being settled in installments.
  • Tonye Princewill’s dilemma

    Tonye Princewill’s dilemma

    One man whose political ambition in 2015 may have come under severe threat is Rivers State-born self-styled ‘Digital Politician’, Tonye Princewill. Several months ago, the candidacy of the Kalabari prince, who wants to be the governor of oil-rich Rivers State, was a strong contender for the PDP ticket.

    But things don’t appear to be looking rosy for the politician at the moment. The crisis that has pitted President Goodluck Jonathan against Governor Rotimi Amaechi in the state appears to have changed the political equation. Amaechi has left the PDP, the platform through which he actualised his governorship ambition, for the APC. Tonye, on the other hand, remains in PDP and insists that he would not leave the party for any other; even when his benefactor and mentor, Atiku Abubakar, defected, he said on his social media pages that he would remain in PDP.

    Again, indications in Rivers State at the moment are that the PDP may not looking in his direction for its flag bearer. Besides the Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, there are other aspirants on the party’s platform in the state who seem to be pulling their weights more than Princewill. However, while he pledges unflinching loyalty to the PDP, he is reported to have been a major financier of the recently registered Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM). Many believe he is positioning PDM as an alternative platform should the PDP look elsewhere for its flag bearer.

  • Wike’s lasting burden

    Even a child in the primary school should not be told about who the Supervising Minister for Education, Nyesom Wike, is. The Nigerian populace knows him better as the arrow head of the crises that have been rocking Rivers State, than as the Minister for Education he was supposed to be. Supposedly, he is better known as a rabble-rouser than a diplomat.

    His incessant showcasing of affront in the politics of Rivers offends every sensibility. His recent remarks that Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State would go to jail in the event that President Goodluck Jonathan wins in the 2015 presidential elections put Wike’s reputation in question.

    Conversely, this statement shows that Wike has exhausted all the avenues he knew to remove Amaechi from office. Wike had leaned on the cases that Amaechi had with some opposition members concerning the 2007 and 2011 gubernatorial elections in the state to make his boast of removing Amaechi, but when he has seen that that did not work, he prolonged his boast to 2015; a tactic he has been using to hoodwink his unsuspecting marooned followership in some local government areas of the state.

    It is left for those who still take Wike seriously to continue to follow him. But the in-thing is that if there is anybody who may be heading to the gulag before or after 2015 for impropriation of office, that person is invariably not Amaechi, but Wike. No matter what Wike thinks, the government of Amaechi has been in the full swing of administration since its inception. But just a fraction of the Nigerian institutions, such as the Ministry for Education that Wike was appointed to man, has been in total ramshackle and the minister was busy chasing after grasshopper round Amaechi’s building, hoping to hear when Amaechi would say stop.

    Wike’s swagger that the Port Harcourt International Airport and all the land and sea boarders in Rivers State would be shut down immediately the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announces the victory of President Jonathan in 2015 to prevent Governor Amaechi from escaping, is a vacant show-off. Nevertheless, the statement shows that the second term of Mr. President would have more to vendetta than work to alleviate the plight of the hundreds of millions of Nigerians the unenthusiastic brag such as Wike’s, has jeopardised their future.

    The issue is that Wike, instead of accepting with courage that he is afraid of the political sagacity and dexterity of Amaechi, is making statements to the contrary. Wike continues to expose himself to public ridicule by saying that Rivers State is PDP, instead of accepting the fact that the party he belongs to has been slammed into being an opposition.

    Against all odds, Wike least expected that he would be in the opposition political party in Rivers State, therefore he is making every unprintable comment against Amaechi, so that his ill-fated followership will continue to be misled. What Wike does not realise before sending Amaechi to his prison in 2015 is that the state apparatuses are not complaining; they are of the statement that Amaechi has been accounting for every bit of his stewardship, consequently he has no reason to be afraid of any probe.

    It is understandable that Wike has no account to render on his own education stewardship other than how he has been fighting hard in making sure that Amaechi was removed and sent direct to prison without any forms of trial by a court of competent jurisdiction.

    Education in Nigeria has really suffered under Wike’s watch the same way he wants Rivers State to suffer because he wants to be controlling the power in the state from Abuja. Results today are that Wike does not make coherent statements, except those of war, kill and bury.

    Aside being the LGA chairman, Wike fervently became noticed when he was appointed as the Chief of Staff to the governor and subsequently minister; the latter being the position he has turned to his guerrilla base, from where he takes off to bomb Amaechi with unedited words and hopeless political strategies aimed at ousting Amaechi.

     

    Odimegwu Onwumere,

    Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

     

  • PDP: Impunity is all you know, and all you need to know …

    Concluding his famous “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, Romantic English poet, John Keats (1795-1821), wrote: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”.

    Keats wrote at a period of intense anguish, almost ennui; when the greens of Britain made way for the grey of industry, and the romantics, ever, ever wary of change, rued the sure and steady disappearance of the green they had known; and all but predicted doom for a future green-less-ness.

    Keats himself was battling intense personal and family tragedies, before succumbing to consumption (tuberculosis) at mere 26. So, in the Grecian Urn’s eternal beauty and happiness, he located, in startling contrast, his own eternal woes, though his life was but a fleeting wind!

    Well, this is no excursion into Keats’s poetry; or even the English romantic genre. It is rather noting some parallels between Keats’ England and contemporary Nigeria.

    Keats’s England was all anxiety over the future, even if its government’s industrial revolution was charting a course that would secure the future, even if the curse of green-less-ness (as feared by the poetic Romantics) would come back to plague the globe.

    Today’s Nigeria is all anxiety over its future. Though spinners of President Goodluck Jonathan insist the President is doing the necessary envisioning to secure a better Nigeria, the ennui of not quite a few is that the president is at sea.

    So, as the hearts of Keats’s romantics skipped a bit, there was evidence that the loss they mourn would breed a future good. In Nigeria’s case, it would appear a double jeopardy: everything is topsy-turvy yet there is hardly any guarantee it would end in any future good. But then, the public are a great one for pessimism, let them! That, as the Pentecostals would mouth, is not the portion of the President and his men.

    Talking about the president, he was in especially boisterous mood the other day in Owerri, when addressing the PDP tribe gathered there. An upbeat president, flush from his impunity of Sanusi-slaying, told the “mammoth” crowd gathered, and warned PDP defectors to retrace their steps, or forfeit their pecking order in the party.

    Not for the president the genesis of their grievances, not for him the emotional dislocation, not for him even the collateral damage for the democratic polity, of a ruling party, unravelling because of its penchant for systemic injustice. All the president knew, and all he and his party needed to know, was the language of threat, the language of impunity. Conform, or else …

    Ah, the other day, Jonathan Rivers Man-Friday, the wike-wike-talking Nyesom Wike, was threatening that should his Oga-at-the-top, Jonathan, win in 2015, Governor Rotimi Amaechi would be arrested and post-haste thrown into the slammer! But what if he does not win? That, to him, is no option. So, Amaechi, start shivering and trembling!

    And even old man, Bamanga Tukur, now in a rehabilitative railway camp, was also all threat until the party nearly collapsed on his head!

    But then, impunity is what they know, and need to know …

     

     

     

     

  • Amaechi: I won’t stop fighting Jonathan’s anti-Rivers policies

    Amaechi: I won’t stop fighting Jonathan’s anti-Rivers policies

    •Says Wike spoke for President over arrest threat

    Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State declared yesterday that no amount of threats, including the one issued at the weekend by the Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, would cow him into silence.

    Wike had threatened that the governor would be arrested and the Port Harcourt International Airport shut if President Goodluck Jonathan wins the 2015 election.

    Amaechi vowed to continue to speak up against the policies and decisions of the Jonathan Administration whenever he considers them inimical to the ultimate interest of the people that voted him into office.

    He insisted that he is not a coward and has never liked a coward.

    The governor spoke through his Chief of Staff on phone to reporters in response to Wike’s threat that Amaechi would be arrested and sent to jail once President Goodluck Jonathan is re-elected next year.

    “I presume Wike is speaking the president’s mind,” Amaechi said.

    “Nothing will stop me from fighting for the right and interest of the people of Rivers State. The people and residents of Rivers State are my primary constituency, and I have sworn on oath to protect their interests. I have repeatedly said that I will support and vote for President Jonathan if he gives back to Rivers State the five Soku Oil wells that have been ceded to Bayelsa State.”

    He added: “The issue of the Soku oil wells is not about Amaechi, it is about the economic interest of our state. So, I cannot be cowed because of some imaginary threat. No! Amaechi is far more than that.”

    The governor who spoke through the Chief of Staff, Government House, Chief Tony Okocha, also revealed that although he (governor) was not aware of any plan to punish or humiliate him if President Jonathan is reelected, it was clear that Wike was speaking the president’s mind.

    He said: “Well, if you have been following the political crisis in Rivers State, especially the role of the presidency in its avowed support for the Abuja-based politicians from Rivers State, you can easily deduce that Wike is speaking the president’s mind. When the evil plotter beats the drum for the innocent, the gods will not let it sound.

    “Wike will not stop playing God. He is an indecent mind contributing nothing than a baggage of mischief and villainy, yet he remains a senior member of the federal government. In contrast to Wike, Governor Amaechi remains a hero in our political history. His prodigies in the political landscape cannot be dwarfed by never-do-wells as Wike. Amaechi is a great achiever, erudite scholar, incorruptible and fearless.”

    Okocha also pointed out that Governor Amaechi’s decision not to support President Jonathan in 2015 is borne out of principles and self conviction to which Amaechi is entitled.

    “It is not surprising that Wike speaks so despicably of a man who threw him up politically. He is one of those who ill- advise the president that opposition is punishable by death.

    “Now, see where we are today. One will expect that Wike is scolded for making such gutter statement but, alas, it’s a further meal ticket for him. Nigeria we hail thee!”

    Wike had said that members of the PDP in the state would shut-down the Port Harcourt International Airport and all land and sea borders in Rivers State after next year’s elections to prevent the governor and his supporters from escaping from the state.

     

  • Jonathan charges universities on research 

    Jonathan charges universities on research 

    President Goodluck Jonathan has charged universities to drive researches that would help check the many problems facing the nation.

    Speaking yesterday at the 27th convocation ceremony of the University of Calabar, Jonathan said the institution has produced notable individuals in all facets of life that have contributed to the development of the country.

    The president, who was represented by the supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, also sought greater emphasis on entrepreneurial programmes to foster self-reliance and development.

    “Graduates should not only strive to be self employed but create jobs for others,” he said.

    He said the federal government has built 12 new federal universities to ensure almost all the 36 states in the country have one in their domain.

    He also said his administration has built 90 Almajiri schools to improve nomadic education.

    He lamented strike actions, which have plagued the educational sector.

    “Strikes should be a thing of the past. More could be achieved through dialogue,” he said.

  • Varsities get N200b intervention fund letters

    Varsities get N200b intervention fund letters

    The Federal Government yesterday gave letters of allocation of the N200 billion intervention fund to public universities.

    Supervising Minister of Education Nyesom Wike, who presented the letters at a meeting with vice chancellors in Abuja, said the Federal Government was committed to improving university education.

    Wike advised the universities to ensure that the money was used to improve infrastructure in the schools.

    The minister said the government planned to give account of what tertiary institutions were doing from next month.

    He explained that the institutions would account for the funds allocated to them to let the public know what the government was doing to improve the sector.

    Wike said it was imperative that the public know how much government was investing in education and correct the impression that it was neglecting the sector.

    The minister said the exercise would be conducted in the six geopolitical zones, beginning from March 4.

    The exercise will begin with the Northcentral Zone at the Federal College of Agriculture, Makurdi, he said.

    Wike said the Southeast would meet at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, on March 11, while University of Port Harcourt would host the Southsouth on March 10.

    The minister added that the Ahmadu Bello University would host the Northwest while the Southwest would converge on University of Ibadan.

    He urged the universities not to see the exercise as an audit of their financial expenditure but a sensitisation of what they were doing to revitalise education.

    Wike said the events would be transmitted live on the media for the public to know what investments the government was making in the sector and what the schools have on ground.

    The Federal Government, in a bid to end the protracted strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in 2013, approved a N200 billion increase in university funding in the 2014 budget and for the next four years.

     

     

  • Poly students demand Wike’s sack

    Poly students demand Wike’s sack

    Activities at the Federal Ministry of Education, Abuja were disrupted yesterday, as the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) enters the fifth month.

    Students under the aegis of the National Association Nigerian Polytechnic Students (NANPS) protested what they described as the insensitivity of the Federal Government to their plight.

    They demanded the removal of the Supervising Minister for Education, Nyesom Wike, over what they called his inability to resolve the crisis.

    Protesting in front of the Federal Ministry of Education, the students carried placards, such as: “Wike Must Go”, “Government is insensitive”, among others.

    Policemen ensured law and order.

    NANPS’ National President, Comrade Sunday Ogbonnaya, told The Nation that ASUP’s demands had the backing of the students, particularly as it concerned ending the discrimination against HND holders and demanding better funding for the polytechnics.

    “The last meeting between ASUP and the minister was inconclusive. ASUP initially had 13 demands, then it streamlined them into four. Having entered into agreements with the union, it is unfair for the government to fail to yield. We appealed to ASUP at the meeting with the minister that if they were canvassing for what was theirs; they should not use students as negotiation tools in getting what they wanted.

    “A few days after that meeting, ASUP met and said the strike would continue and for reasons, we believe in the struggle of ASUP. We are tired of staying at home. We are in support of the 13 demands of the union and we are ready to support them to make sure that the demands are met. We believe in dialogue. This protest would have been held a long time ago, but we decided to wait. We want them to go back to work while negotiations continue. Let it be known to the public that what they are fighting for is in the interest of the public,” he said.

  • As Ogunsakin takes over Rivers Police Command

    As Ogunsakin takes over Rivers Police Command

    Though the clamour for his removal as Commissioner of Police in Rivers State was very high and had even assumed an international dimension, not a few were taken by surprise when the Police Service Commission last Thursday acted out of character by redeploying Mbu Joseph Mbu to the Federal Capital Territory Police Command, thus ending one of the darkest moments in the history of the Nigeria Police.

    The service record of CP Mbu as head of the police in Rivers State was less than enviable. It is no use recalling some of them again as virtually all adult literate Nigerians that have kept themselves abreast of situations in the country in the last couple of years would have heard and formed their opinion about this police officer.

    Specially head hunted from Oyo State Police command by Mrs Patience Jonathan and recruited into her forces in her battle against Governor Rotimi Amaechi, Mbu became so bad and terrible in his performance in Rivers that no state governor was willing to tolerate him or ready to receive him when he was to be removed from his post in Port Harcourt last year following strings of questionable actions, orders and utterances.

    It was rumoured that he was to be posted to Imo State Police Command but the governor there would have none of that. He was also rumoured to be heading to the Port Police Command as CP, just to give him a soft landing, but his god mother intervened and he remained in Port Harcourt to cause more atrocities.

    But I think his masters started getting fed up with him and his god mother with that shooting at the Port Harcourt rally of the Save Rivers Movement, when rubber bullets were shot into the crowd by his men hitting and injuring a serving senator of the Federal republic in the process. The national and international condemnation of the Federal Government that followed put the presidency in bad light and probably convinced The Villa that CP Mbu was becoming a liability, even if he is their ‘good boy’.

    When Mbu followed this up by folding his arms while thugs and criminals disrupted another SRM rally at Bori in Ogoni land, while the rival Grassroots Democratic Initiative, a pro Jonathan group being sponsored by the Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike was having a field day and enjoying police protection, not a few were convinced that Mbu was carrying his Masters’ assignment too far and his days were numbered. The Inspector General of Police who was rumoured not to be pleased with Mbu because he did not take orders from him any longer had to act publicly by ordering the CP to provide police cover for another SRM rally planned for Bori which Governor Amaechi had publicly vowed to lead, daring Mbu and his police to come and shoot him.

    With the tide suddenly turning against him, Mbu made a last ditch effort to warm his way back into the heart of the IGP when in a most indecorous manner, he took out a full page advert in newspapers praising his bosses at Police Headquarters. Most people believed that was the last throw of the dice by the CP that probably made up the mind of his ‘ogas’ at the top to remove him, but then they still had to contend with his god mother at the top. I am sure the decision by the opposition to block the passage of the 2014 budget, especially the allocation to the Police in the appropriation bill must have been the last straw that broke Mbu’s back in Abuja; he had to leave Port Harcourt and urgently too. The rest as they say is history.

    It was not my intention to revisit the Mbu matter again on this page having written several times on it in the past, but I can’t resist letting some people out there who have been abusing and even cursing this columnist and my colleagues who have had cause to disagree with CP Mbu’s style that we have nothing personal against this police officer or the Nigeria Police in general other than our desire to have a strong institution (police) that would enforce the law even handedly without fear or favour. And this is the challenge before the new Rivers State police boss Tunde Ogunsakin.

    Mbu may have meant well initially when he started but he missed it the moment he allowed himself to be sucked in to the politics of Rivers State. Now he is a toxic officer that nobody wants to touch. What a pity?

    With CP Ogunsakin in the saddle, he would do well to learn from the mistakes of his controversial predecessor and avoid the proverbial banana peel. Rivers State is complex in the sense that forces trying to control its resources and future are very powerful and determined. Nyesom Wike, pretending to be fighting the cause of President Jonathan is merely using the name of the president and exploiting the man’s desperation to return to office for a second term, to further his own interest in the governorship of the state next year.

    Madam Patience Jonathan, the First Lady is also interested in producing the next governor of Rivers State, preferably from among her Okrika kinsmen, as security against life after her husband’s presidency.

    Expectedly, Governor Rotimi Amaechi should be interested in producing his successor.

    These three groups will play a major role in the politics of the state between now and elections next year and they would use all the tricks in their armoury to gain the upper hand. Throw in President Jonathan and his eyeing of the two million plus votes from Rivers in the next presidential election into the equation and you have a tough situation on your hand in Rivers State between now and the general elections in 2015.

    This is the situation CP Ogunsakin is inheriting in Rivers State today and his task is not made easier by the fact that he is taking over a command already polarized by a partisan officer who had just been redeployed. All he needs to do is to be professional as possible in the discharge of his duties and he will need all his professional trainings and experience garnered over the years as an officer to achieve this. It is a good thing that he had served as a Divisional Police Officer (I think) in Rivers State before, so it will not be a totally new terrain to him.

  • Wike distorting facts on monorail, says Amaechi

    Wike distorting facts on monorail, says Amaechi

    Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi has described the Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, as a distorter of facts who should be ignored.

    Wike, a former Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt, appearing on Channels Television yesterday, described the monorail in the state capital as a waste of funds.

    The Minister of State for Education, who is a two-term Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, declared that Amaechi had lost focus and never contributed to his rise in politics or his ministerial nomination.

    But the governor described Wike’s outbursts as false and misleading. He maintained that he remained focused and determined to develop Rivers State and empower the people.

    The governor spoke through his Chief Press Secretary, David Iyofor, who conducted reporters round the site of the monorail on Azikiwe Road in Port Harcourt.

    Iyofor said contrary to Wike’s claim that nothing was happening at the monorail site, work was going on. The site engineer also spoke with the reporters who accompanied him.

    The CPS said: “Gentlemen of the press, as you can see, work is ongoing at the site of the monorail project. So, it is funny when we hear the Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, say that work is not going on.

    “You all heard him (Wike) on television saying there is no work going on at the monorail site. He was asked pointedly. He said, no, nothing is happening on the monorail project. But I am glad you all are here and you can see that work is going on in the monorail.

    “You heard the site engineer. They even work day and night, so that they can meet the target for completion and the monorail is already like 85 per cent completed, according to him.

    “So, it is even funny that a minister can come on national television to lie and attempt to deceive Nigerians.

    “It is something that all can see. I mean anybody who drives through Azikiwe Road can see that work is ongoing. So why will Wike come on national television and say nothing is happening at the Rivers monorail.

    “So, you can only imagine what else he has lied about, if he can lie on something that we all can see. It is unfortunate.

    “This is the project he (Wike) was part of. He was a member of the State Executive Council, when this project started.

    “So, I urge Nigerians to completely disregard whatever he said. If he can lie about something we all can see, so we can imagine how many lies he told in that interview.”

    Iyofor also described as outrageous the minister’s claims that the new schools that Amaechi had built all over the 23 local governments were only in Port Harcourt.

    The chief press secretary also refuted Wike’s claim that the governor did not make him minister.

    He said: “The bottom-line is that Governor Amaechi nominated him (Wike) to be a minister. Wike said his name was two or three on the ministerial list sent to the President by the governor. So, what does he want?”

    The Site Engineer, = Dele Mateola, who was at the project site at the time of the interview, stated that work was in progress and nearing completion.

    He noted that the Azikiwe Station of the monorail was 85 per cent completed, disclosing that his men had been working day and night to meet the completion date.