Some people play politics to suit themselves, to ‘butter’ their bread. Some others have the sole desire to effect change positively in the society. Although there is no art to find the minds construction in the face, as Shakespeare would say, yet it is accepted that out of the abundance of the heart, a man speaks.
It is rare for a party member, patronized by the governor of his state, boldly coming out to criticize the governor of his party. The Prince of the Niger Delta, Prince Tonye Princewill may be an exception.
Here, The Newswriter, ‘Illuminating Humanity with the Pen,’ in its characteristic manner, presents to you verbatim, the words of the Prince for you to decide which side of the divide he belongs to.
Prince Tonye Princewill met with journalists on Wednesday, March 7, 2012 and the focus was the administration of Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi.
In a no-hold-bared manner, the Prince commented on issues ranging from performance and non-performance of the governor, an attempt by Sir Celestine Omehia to bribe him, condemnation of Sir. Peter Odili’s administration and his desire to see change in Rivers State, the mono rail project, why he joined Action Congress, AC and several other issues. Happy reading.
Princewill:
2015 is around the corner but we have not reached there yet. We have a governor that governor is working. Yes, a lot of us will like to see him work even better. We cannot have it by shouting about 2015. What we have to do is to help him work better and move forward.
Between 2007 and 2011, I wanted to maintain fairly low profile. Yes, there were few press releases, but my interaction was kept low, because I knew that in 2011 our governor would want to go again and I have no intention of challenging him, so I deliberately did not want to raise any attention to myself. But now you are going to see more interaction because I believe that some of you are closer to the grassroots than many politicians. Many politicians don’t have access to the grassroots on a day to day basis. You hear from the people and many of you probably ask yourselves whether politicians care for the people. You have found examples of politicians that do and you have found examples of politicians that do not. I am a politician and I don’t want to belong to the latter category. I belong to the former, politicians that care. So for me, as much as we like compliments, I prefer that we are criticized. If you ask me, government and governance is still not working for the people. Where it is working, it is not working very well. I am not an official of government but I will not deny that there are certain policies and strategies of government that I am part of, if not in the formal sense, in an informal sense. So, I will not deny that Rivers State government and I are close, but I cannot speak as an official of the Rivers State government.
Silverbird in Rivers State
Yes, the government and I had a slight disagreement. He said he is the one that brought them. I said I am the one that brought them. Silverbird was one of the first investors that came to the state. When Amaechi came to power, you were all aware we had curfew by 7pm, security in the state was very bad. Investors were refusing to come.
The transaction was very simple. Amaechi wants business activities to start. If you ask Silverbird, Silverbird will tell you it is because of me they put their money because they were not sure. I was insisting that they should come and help create jobs and when eventually Ben Bruce decided, Oceanic Bank and Union Bank came in. The agreement was that government would give them land, they will build the structure, 80% for Silver bird, 20% for government. It will cost about N10bn.
About a year into the project, we all know what happened to the MDs of Oceanic and Union banks. Since then they could not continue. My responsibility over the last few years is just securing money. What you see is the first phase.
The governor felt they came because of his personal relationship with Ben Bruce and so he is the one that brought them. But I think that even if you bring someone to the state, if you don’t have somebody to hold the persons hands, the person will not spent his money. As in the last count, Silverbird has spent quite a lot of money. A hotel is coming up, a conference centre, a shopping mall and Shoprite will open up shops. It is a big project. Any minute from now you will see constructions going on. A million dollars worth of piling had been completed.
We are not very happy about the pace of the transaction but the attitude of the government is that not one naira would be put into it. The government will give the land and Silverbird has to develop it. Hopefully they will be able to complete it. Let me add that because of the delay, Gov. Amaechi was successful in negotiating Silverbird’s equity down. So, am yet to confirm the exact figure, but I think it is no longer 80:20. It is now about 70:30.
Assessment of Gov. Amaechi and performance of his cabinet
My rating of Gov. Amaechi in the first tenure is 6/10. Now, I don’t believe we have achieved the level of momentum we achieved in his second administration. But I have to confess that I have looked behind the scenes. I was very disheartened. He is very much aware of how disheartened I was, a few months ago. But in recent weeks, I have to say that my optimism is rising though it is not still yet where it should be. We have got to a point that I can comfortably say that by the time he finishes his tenure, Rivers people will smile. This is a bit like the food being cooked and of course, before the food comes out, people will still be hungry.
I was able to do an inspection of the whole state and it is amazing the kind of things happening in the far reaches of the state. I was in Andoni 18 months ago. I was shocked with what I saw in Andoni, with the level of progress. I saw the level of progress, where Sir. Omehia stopped. I saw the progress when Amaechi took over 18 months ago and I saw the progress two weeks ago. I was shocked about what I saw in my own community, Buguma. I went there two weekends ago. You can imagine from Andoni to Buguma in one day-two extremes of the state. What I saw on inspection, I have to confess, amazed me. If you go to Peter Odili road, you will see a big fence. I don’t think many knew what is happening behind the fence. Some of us have been privileged to go behind that fence and what I saw amazed me. I asked the governor why he has not said anything about it. He said he is not interested in so much hype and publicity. My assessment is that things are better than they look.
I said to the governor in the first tenure that his team did not match his vision. In other words, the team of people he had did not match the vision that he had. I felt that he did not have the right team to deliver his vision and and his second administration has not given me the cause to feel different. I think there is a mixture of governance and politics and I think getting that balance is very difficult. What do you do with the people that worked with you and helped you to secure victory? It is not an easy thing. People can sit down and criticize. If the governor is asked I don’t think he would say he is enthusiastic about his team. I doubt that he will be, but that is for him to say. I will say that I am not enthusiastic. I say it in the best of possible ways because it is not easy when you are dealing with a man with a mission. I expect to see his own kind of dynamism reflect in all his commissioners. If that happens then we have a team. It is not easy, and I don’t think he has it.
He knows me as a constructive critic; my own is not just to proffer problems, My own is to proffer solutions and as much as people don’t know what is happening behind the scenes, he knows that when it comes to criticism he can get it from me and usually the criticism will be direct and also constructive.
We have fantastic schools buildings, but buildings don’t teach people. Until you can put the teachers there and those teachers can actually do the work to produce pupils and secondary school teachers that we can be proud of, we haven’t started working. Now that is a bit harsh. Of course he has started working. What I am trying to say is that if you have the building and you don’t put in place proper system, those good buildings would decay, and when they decay what ultimately happens is that the you will not have good service and the next persons will come and have to start the buildings again. So what I am worried about is the absence of teachers. What I am worried about is the absence of the curriculum, a sustainable system that can run. Until we have that I cannot be satisfied. Amaechi has said something that I agree, that ‘let me start somewhere.’ He can’t do everything. Let us acknowledge and recognize when we have done something and also what you still have to do. Somebody’s job is not to bask in euphoria of the buildings. I wont do that. Fantastic buildings, yes, but we can’t stop there. Until you can deliver the service and see it to a point where we say, yes, students are coming out of it, we can’t stop there. The same applies to the hospitals. You have to have the doctors, have the nurses and ultimately you have to have systems that run. In the absence of that, these fantastic buildings would not do the trick for us. So for me, the true test, and I will mean that when I can start to score him 7/10 category or 8/10 category is that we have buildings that are not just buildings, but they are institutions that ultimately produce the kind of students that we deserve to see and of course that are treating the kind patients that we also deserve to see. We have not quite hit those marks yet. Of course there is a lot of other areas where rooms for improvement exist, but my own attitude to criticism is that if you want to hear criticisms, talk to people like me. If you want to hear praises, talk to other people. Thankfully the kind of governor we have is not the kind of governor who wants to hear praises. He is prepared to hear criticism. Where it is constructive, he would welcome it.
If you listen to me, it sounds like Rivers State is not doing well. So if you ask me I will tell you that the benchmark which many people are using is the past administration which is Odili’s administration. Now many of you know that I was a firm antagonist of that administration. That is why I came out to contest for governor in the first place. I was very angry and my anger was built on the fact that we have over N1.3 trillion in 8 years and we did not have anything to show for it and everybody was keeping quiet. So I was quite happy to be focal opponent of that and I don’t want to change that trend. Anywhere I see things are not going quite right, I want to be able to speak and speak on it.
So, I think that is a broad summary. You can look at various categories, but I think that the governor may just still manage 6/10 from me, on the basis of, let me call it, anticipated gains. But before now it may be less than that. I hope, I don’t want to say because he has subjected himself to scrutiny, I am sure that where he is not getting it right, it will be corrected and by the time he leaves in 2015, we will have a situation where the state will be much better off than it is currently. ###
