As the Nyesom Wike led administration gradually approaches its end, citizens have began to react to policies of Rivers State Government and its impact on the lives of citizens.
Excerpts of such evaluation carried out by a political analyst, Baridem Ben, reads;
.Security:
There is nobody in the country today that won’t score Rivers State F9 on security. This is a state where they design the street with human heads and celebrate on the road with severe body parts. Hundreds of people have been killed since Wike took over, both prominent and ordinary people. Communities after communities have been sacked without the governor lifting a finger to do anything. All these are happening because Wike is encouraging “awa boys”.
Rating: F9
.
Employment Generation:
Today in Rivers State, there is officially an embargo on employment. The last time we saw that was in those Odili days. Not a single soul had been employed yet thousands of others have been sacked. Also, the governor has not attracted any major company to the state to provide jobs, instead companies are leaving for insecurity. Even Buhari has provided more jobs for Rivers people than him, through the npower program.
Rating: F9
.
Civil Service:
Civil servants in Rivers State are regretting seriously for supporting a man who treats them with utter disdain. The Timariv workers were the first casualties, he sacked all of them, over a thousand of them. The Greater Port Harcourt City workers are being owed for over 30 months, the Sustainable development agency workers don’t know what salary looks like. Pension and gratuity are not paid, those who are due for promotion are not promoted and those who have been promoted does not have their promotion implemented. In all of these, thousands of workers have been sacked. I pity Rivers workers.
Rating: F9
.
Economy:
First, there is no economic blueprint, no focus, no direction. The IGR in 2014 was #89.11 billion, while that of 2017 was #89.49 billion, which shows that our IGR has not improved at all. When Amaechi took over, IGR was 2 billion naira, and by the end of his first tenure, he had tripled it. By the time he left office, IGR was between 8 to 11 billion Naira. Even without doing anything, IGR is supposed to increase, but here under Wike we’re just stagnated, which shows a serious decline. All the efforts to diversify the economy through investment in agriculture have been abandoned. Not a single investment opportunity has been created in 3 years, instead companies are leaving the state in droves. Our debt profile has also skyrocketed.
Rating: F9
.
Agriculture:
There is an agric revolution sweeping all over the country today. Several states have keyed into the Anchors Borrowers program of the CBN and are diversifying their economy. Sadly, Nyesom Wike of Rivers State is not interested. Rivers State was ahead of other states in this revolution, with the Songhai Farm, the Banana Plantation, and Fish farm in Buguma, all of which have now been destroyed by Nyesom Wike.
Ratings: F9
.
Power:
Amaechi in his time contributed over 500mw of power to the national grid, but today under Wike, there is zero improvement in power supply. Even the state Secretariate which is the seat of power in the state do stay months without power supply.
Rating: F9
.
Environment:
The Pleasure Park is a good project that adds value to the state. The beautification of roads too is equally a good one. But for every street that Wike landscapes, there are two streets he has allowed to rot away. Go through Aba road and Rumuola and you will discover that the beautiful landscape there are rotting away for lack of maintenance. When it comes to Sanitation, Rivers State had never had it so bad because Wike decided to politicise RIWAMA by appointing the PDP chairman as its boss. Rivers State had a waste treatment facility built by Amaechi and sanitation was taken seriously, but today Port Harcourt is competing with Aba for the dirtiest city in Nigeria. As if that is not enough, Wike is killing Rivers people gradually with black soot. The major cause of the soot is because Wike has emboldened his boys to proliferate illegal refineries. On this black soot alone, Wike would’ve been lynched in some clime.
Rating: F9
.
Education:
Our children at various stages of studies abroad were brought back home; the demonstration secondary schools attached to our state tertiary institutions have been destroyed with the lives of the workers there ruined completely. The model secondary schools built by Amaechi, which could pass off for a university, is now a conference room for grass, snakes and lizards. The free education we enjoyed in the state had been stopped, even to the point where school children were asked to pay tax. The security personnel attached to some of our state schools were refused pay to the point where they shutdown the schools and school children were protesting. Over 350 lecturers of Rivers State Polytechnic had been sacked, with those vacancies still there till today. Rivers State that was once the world book capital of the world is now firmly on reverse gear.
Ratings: F9
.
Works (Roads):
He has done well to complete the roads that were ongoing before he came in. The streetlights and traffic lights are also commendable. The settings of the street lights are however poor, and the crosses at major junctions are fetish practice taken too far. The pot holes he’s been filling was good, but there is no sustainability in the way it is done, more potholes are springing up. Wike has not done major bridges, flyovers, and super highways like we saw under Amaechi. Places like Garrison and Rumuokoro deserves a 21st century flyover. For all his noise about roads, no major traffic problem has been solved, our IGR remains the same which means he’s added nothing new to what he met on ground, economy wise. If you like construct one million roads and they don’t result in jobs and economic prosperity then you’ve done nothing.
Rating: D7
.
Local Government Affairs:
The governor has turned our local government into an institution for political settlement. For three years, all the money allocated to these LGAs and the ones generated are pocketed and shared among PDP members. While states like Kaduna State are doing well to make the LGAs productive, Wike is killing them in Rivers State.
Ratings: F9
.
Budget & Economic Planning:
This is a state where nobody knows what the budget is, it has been shrouded in secrecy like an occultic document. It is also sad that in this 21st century, there is also no economic blueprint the governor is working with. Nobody knows where our state is headed, where it will be in the next 10 years, no long term, short term, and middle term plan. Even the federal government has an Economic Recovery and Growth Plan which is to help the country achieve a growth rate of 7% by 2020. There is also the medium term expenditure framework and fiscal strategy paper, all which helps us to know where economy is headed. But here in Rivers State, Wike sits down in his house and spend our money on impulse.
Rating: F9
.
Commerce & Industry:
If you go to Eleme today, there stands the World’s biggest fertiliser plant, which was attracted to the state by the federal government and commissioned in July 2017 by Osinbajo. Wike, on the other hand, has not attracted a single industry into the state, instead they’re leaving for insecurity. Nobody in Rivers State today know who the commissioner for Commerce and Industry is, because that sector is completely dead.
Rating: F9
.
Culture & Tourism:
I’m sure that Rivers people still remember Carniriv, which was the second biggest carnival in Nigeria after Calabar carnival. That project was abolished in a desperate bid to destroy Amaechi’s legacy. Our cultural heritage has been forgotten, while our state is no longer a destination for tourist. Even trade fair sef, we no see.
Rating: F9
.
Health:
Wike is building hospitals in places where hospital already existed. The problem with those existing hospitals was not new buildings but lack of equipment. The new buildings are only meant to give him a greater opportunity to siphon Rivers money. Most of the health centers built by Amaechi and well equipped had been left in ruin, in a calculated attempt to destroy Amaechi’s legacies. Would the money he’s wasting on these new hospitals not enough to employ more doctors and provide quality health services to the rural areas where these health centres were built?
Rating: F9
.
Housing:
The reason why Abuja, Lagos and other Nigerian States are developing fast is because the government is partnering with the private sector to build or develop affordable properties, housing, for civil servants and other Nigerians to buy. Today in Rivers State, no new estate has been built by the government. Even Odili that didn’t perform built 200 housing estates in each LGA. But housing is a word that no longer exist in our dictionary. How then can a state grow well without affordable housing scheme for citizens?
Rating: F9
.
Information & Communication:
There was an IT centre built under Amaechi at AirForce junction after Peace Park. Today, that project has been abandoned in a computer age. My friends who work in RSTV are decrying how Wike has refused to improve on the equipment he met on ground, and how he has politicised the station. The only thing that Wike does well in this area is to sing his own praise in the media.
Rating: F9; Propaganda: A1
.
Urban Development:
If you go to Bori, Bonny, Onne, Degema and all the other urban towns in Rivers State today, there is no government presence there. Their internal roads are getting bad and power supply is worse. There is no deliberate effort to develop the urban towns and reduce the congestion of Port Harcourt. Even the Greater Port Harcourt City Project has been abandoned.
Rating: F9
.
Justice:
The judiciary is supposed to be one of the three arms of government, but it is not so in Rivers State. Wike has been showering judges with gifts and building them quarters. This would’ve earned him a good score, but unfortunately, these actions were taken to induce our judges. Today, the judiciary in the state is nothing more than a supermarket where you can go and buy any court order of your choice. If you want Baridam Ben to change his name today, just go there and they will give it to you. It would’ve been better for the court to be shutdown and we go elsewhere to access justice than for it to be opened with the sole purpose of witch hunting Rivers people.
Rating: F9
.
Transportation:
We used to have taxis branded in the blue and white colours of Rivers State. Today, nobody can differentiate between a taxi and a private car, which shows the level of indiscipline and misgovernance going on under Nyesom Wike. Even the state transport scheme, RTC, is totally dead. In those days we used to have the Skyebank Buses, a product of public private partnership between Skyebank and the state government, but today that scheme is no more. As far as transportation goes, Rivers State is again on a reverse gear.
Rating: F9
.
Water Resources & Rural Development:
In Wike’s inauguration address he said “we have concluded plans to reticulate pipe-born water to Abonnema, Gokana and Khana communities within our first 100 days in office.” Sadly, 3 years after, nothing has been done in the provision of pipe borne water anywhere in the state. Also, when Amaechi was governor, he brought water, roads, light, model primary school and a health centre to my village. He did same for many other villages too. Today, Wike has not given my village anything, even to sustain the ones he met he couldn’t do it, and it’s the same story all over the state.
Rating: F9
.
Sports:
You won’t believe it that Wike is still owing our state footballers till now, even after boasting that he’s cleared their salaries. The guys were protesting the other day. The baffling thing is that this is happening even after dismantling Dolphin and Sharks into one football team, letting go countless of players without pay. He wasted our money travelling around the world under the pretext of attracting a Real Madrid football academy to the state, little did we know it was all a scam. Under Amaechi we saw a brand new stadium, and sports facilities in primary and secondary schools. But today, no improvement in the area of sports at all.
Rating: F9
