‘Accolades such as Mr. Project, Best this Best that is a diversion and one joke taken too far’ – Beks Dagogo Jack

A proud son of Rivers State from the Kalabari axis and Chairman, Rivers State Contact and Mobilization Committee of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in this explosive interview with Africa Update, gave insight to very sensitive issues.
Excerpts of the interview:

Question: Recently the Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Emma Okah, refuted a report that ranked the state as having the highest unemployment rate. What is your reaction to this?

Response: Thank you. I think you’d want to separate politics from facts, if you want a state to progress. The people who are developing these statistics are not our enemies. They are our friends. The person who tells you how well you are doing, is not your enemy, he is your friend .
Your class teacher who scores you two over ten is not your enemy. He is your friend. He tells you where you are weak and you focus on it, you get better, you graduate and you are better for life. So, for anybody to reject the statistics that does not appear good in their record book but at the same time, to applaud when they are called the best governor in the world, something is wrong with that system. Emma that I know should do better than that.

 

Question 2: Is it proper for the governor to assign N2billion to youths. Shouldn’t this monies be geared towards development of infrastructure? Do you think that’s a right step in the right direction?

Response: I want to tell you off the bat that one of the greatest challenges we have with this administration is clarity of policies and programs. We hear monies flying from pillar to post. We don’t know the driving policy. Are these allocations openly debated on the floor of the state House of Assembly, which is the institutional, constitutional check and balance agency that was provided to work with the Executive ?
What we hear are mere stories and figures from the Executive as if we are still in the military administration. As if there is no State House of Assembly.
A well prepared government will clearly articulate where they are taking the economy of the State to in a holistic plan and  roadmap broken down to policies ,programs , time lines etc. You can drop billions for the youths but what does it achieve? How is the utilization modelled? How is it distributed? Is it on the basis of senatorial district or local government by local government ? And do we know the precise program for each LGA ? No one knows what exactly the 2 Billion is for and which Agency is administering it. Unless there is full transparency and accountability this huge funds will varnish into thin air and end up funding cultists and thugs for the pursuit of selfish political interests without any real impact on the fortunes of our youths I can’t see how releasing billions for youths without first coming out with a convincing plan can increase their prospects of getting employment. That N2 billion will do way better in sustaining the education of our children who were abroad,who were called back, than to be used on things that we can not see. For me, it is not the money, it is the policy. It is the program and the advisers around should be able to tell the governor, the government that we can do better than this .
Two Billion Naira is a lot of money by any standard but it’s only a tiny fraction of our annual capital budget as a State. Now if we end up wasting 2 Billion for an unclear youth program you can only imagine what happens to the rest of the capital budget.

Question 3 : The Sun newspaper and Silverbird Group gave Governor Wike awards and he has received several others within a short period. In Rivers State, he is called Mr Project . in your view, do you think he deserves this title?

Response: Thank you, let me start by saying that it will be wrong of me to question the basis upon which very respected media houses decided to honor our Governor. I do not want to be better or smarter than them, that is their business. My key worry as a technical person, as an Engineer, as a former commissioner for works, as a former commissioner for Transport, as a development focused person is that in the midst of these so called projects I am yet to see one project in the state that has capacity to employ up to 2,000 youths.

When a State as richly blessed as Rivers State talks about a project, it shouldn’t referring to doctor’s and  judges quarters or resurfacing of roadways or land reclamation on Eastern Bye Pass etc. The quality of projects expected from us as one of the richest States in Nigeria are big thicket projects which can employ a lot of our youths during and after the construction. We should be talking about projects which have sizeable foreign direct investment components because this helps to launch us as a powerful regional economic hub recognized around the world and attracts many international business opportunities.
Rivers State should be undertaking projects with several chains of spin-off enterprises which then auto-drive the economy of the State, grow our IGR, and significantly increase the standard of living in the State. Unfortunately most of the projects we see are housing projects of three or four storey buildings of medical staff quarters , Judges’ staff quarters, road resurfacing and such like projects which can at best be described as maintenance projects not major capital projects.
A state which runs an annual budget of N400 – N500 billion should not be talking about projects which our people will be struggling to identify. The proper thing to do is organize and put in place a sound financial model for growing the economy of the State combining equity and debt which will drive clearly articulated development programs to produce dividends like closing key infrastructure gap, promote local enterprises, generate GDP growth, employment, higher standard of living, healthcare , etc . If we are doing the right thing , one project would spin off ten or more projects. That is the correct idea of a project. A lot of people are in government , who are trained, more trained than the governor on development issues. A lot more is expected of them .
We are supposed to be really, really, number two to Lagos. Not just number two in name, such that if Lagos is ranked at ten points , we should be ranked not less than seven. Today we say we are second to Lagos but with only three points. Not good enough.
The earlier Rivers people rise up to tell ourselves the truth, the better for us. Tell me one project in the sense of level of project one sees in South Africa, or Dubai or Bahrain or even poor Rwanda which is going on now in Rivers State.
Let me tell you the gross economic fundamentals of our State is in the order of some African Countries like Senegal, Equatorial Guinea, and way ahead of some like , Burkina Faso, the Gambia etc.
So, continuing to treat ourselves like a miserable little state, looking up to Abuja , is a terrible failure of government .
So, for me accolades such as Mr. Project, Best this Best that is a diversion and one joke taken too far. Hunger is killing our people here. Rural Rivers which has over 50% of our population is in total idleness and abject poverty. Graduates roaming our streets looking for day hire jobs. I think the media being the fourth estate of the realm owes the people a duty to call a spade a spade.