Donald Duke’s Tales by Moonlight
Part of Duke’s grouse against Imoke was that he came and improved the lot of the state’s civil servants by raising their wages from the measly N6000 he was paying them during his eight years as governor. Until Imoke became governor, Cross River workers we
When the sun set finally on Donald Duke in 2007 as governor of Cross River State, the hope of many was that here was a young man being ushered into the hallowed ‘Hall of Fame’ and one about to assume the role of an ‘elder statesman’. As former governor, the role was no doubt rightfully carved out for him as he joined the pantheon of ex-governors of the state. To many, he was ahead of his time, with the future in his hands. That was how Duke was held and revered.
However, Duke could not live up to the statesmanship status expected of him, having swiftly crashed so low as to be engaging in a dance of shame.
In recent times, he, either out of frustration or envy or better still, a combination of both, has surprisingly changed into something of a Delphic Oracle, difficult to understand and remarkably inconsistent in ways no one can fathom.
Targeting his successor, Senator Liyel Imoke, Duke has continued to descend heavily on the immediate past governor for reasons considered rather strange.
Today, many a Cross Riverian still hold it against Imoke for his refusal to speak out about Duke’s alleged misadventure in office and his alleged maladministration as a governor.
I am aware that Imoke had forbidden his aides from speaking about the rot he met in office when he took over from Duke in line with his deliberate effort to make a statesman of his predecessor.
As one who has been around and who had watched events during Duke’s time as governor, his interview published in Thisday of May 30th, a day after Imoke handed over to his successor, Professor Ben Ayade, was a febrile and futile attempt at rewriting history.
In the interview Duke alleged the existence of two monkeys, a veiled reference to companies, allegedly being the only ones doing business with in the state.
While I concede to Duke the self-arrogated role of a watchdog over the state of affairs in the state, it is, however, whimsical that he would rather deny the public, conveniently so, details of contractual dealings during his reign as governor.
In a case of the pot calling kettle black, Donald forgot that only two companies, Strabag and Julius Berger were solely responsible for all the construction jobs when he was governor. Even the much maligned Lilliker, which Duke refers to as one of the two monkeys, was doing business with his own administration, long before Imoke became governor in 2007.
I am always inclined to conclude that the problem Imoke had with his friend was that he surpassed him (Duke’s ) in achievement as governor and towers above him (Duke) politically. Once chummy friends, both Duke and Imoke may have gone their separate ways when the former found the latter’s political profile on the ascendancy while the former was on a free fall.
This is where I think, the rain began to pound their friendship.
As a politician, there is a common refrain in the state that without Imoke, Duke may never have been governor. This much was acknowledged by Duke when he wrote in a book, Born to Serve: “I could not write my story without mentioning his name (Imoke) in chapters; my political life has been associated with him.”
In Duke’s entire political career, he has never worked for anyone and ensured his or her success.
In 2007, he worked against Imoke by supporting his former deputy governor, Elder Walter Eneji. But how did Walter end? He was trounced by Imoke. In 2007, he wanted to be president only to see his ambition evaporate into thin air. Again, he was behind God Jeddy Agba’s ambition to become Cross River State governor in the last April 11 governorship election. He mounted the rostrum and called Imoke all sorts of names.
What was the outcome? It was another colossal failure on the part of Duke. He now calls the same Jeddy Agba he supported all sort of names. I hear they no longer talk to each other because of the duplicity that trailed the relationship.
Duke, in his usual character of blaming everyone but himself for every failure he has encountered, also blamed Imoke for the failure of Tinapa to work. Records show that $450 million dollars was sunk into Tinapa.
In spite of what Imoke’s administration has paid to service the huge debt from Tinapa, there is still a N70 billion debt overhang. Yet Duke told the whole world that the project was a public private partnership arrangement. So why is the state still struggling to service the debt arising from the project? Today, nobody has been able to value the cost of Tinapa above 200million US dollars.
Part of Duke’s grouse against Imoke was that he came and improved the lot of the state’s civil servants by raising their wages from the measly N6000 he was paying them during his eight years as governor. Until Imoke became governor, Cross River workers were the least paid in the entire country. Duke operated the worst anti-civil servants’ policy as a governor. It is on record when he said his worst moment was whenever he remembered he had to pay civil servants. His administration witnessed incessant strikes than any other during his time. He was hated by the civil servants.
In his refusal to give credit to whom it is due, Donald blamed Imoke for failing to continue with the so called blueprint he left behind.
Yet Imoke completed the Lemnar Road project. Even though the Tinapa project was commissioned, the dumbest person in Cross River knew that it was not completed. The Water Park and the Tinapa Studio were completed, by Imoke yet Duke would want the whole world to believe that he developed Tinapa from initiation to completion.
I still recall what one former head of state said when he was invited to Calabar to see Imoke’s administration’s idea for a convention centre. He said: ‘Liyel, I can see what you are trying to do. You are trying to paint a white elephant black.’
Seriously speaking, it is about time Cross Riverians demanded from Duke what his real vision for Tinapa was.
Duke also accused Liyel of stopping flights to Obudu. The question is, what was Duke’s template for the resort, when the government had to subsidize everything from the Cable Car to hotel accommodation? Where on earth is leisure subsidized? He also talked about the disruption of flights to the Ranch. At what cost were these flights when his government was subsidizing the flights at the cost of N6million per week? The truth is, everything about the Ranch Resort was being subsidized, from the flights to cable car and to the hotel were all subsidized.
He said Imoke bought an aircraft, yet stooped flights to the ranch. Now, the idea behind the purchase of the aircraft was that since the government was paying so much to Aero Contractors often times to take six passengers on a 45-seater aircraft to the ranch, the government decided to buy a Dash-8 from the Rivers State government and leased to Aero to run two flights per week. The arrangement was that the company would pay the state government $40 000 US dollars a week.
For Duke, it was absolutely irrational for Imoke to have embarked on rural roads projects, rural electrification.
Still on Tinapa, it was only during Duke’s time as governor that we got to know that you could actually build a shopping mall without anchor tenants. His own idea of a free trade zone was to build expansive ware houses in the name of shopping malls without anchor tenants.
He said in his interview that Imoke shut down the gates of Tinapa, when Wal-Mart and triple 5, owners of Mall of Americas were highly interested in coming in. Sad to say, but Duke ended up exposing to the reading public his lack of vision and direction for Tinapa. There is nowhere in the world that anyone would embark on such a huge project touted as public private partnership project that cost a whopping $450million US dollars of public fund to build without first sourcing anchor tenants for the malls. How come the T-Mart he opened to save his face from the disaster he plunged the state when he could not get any tenant to the facility suddenly collapse? Did Imoke prevent people from going there to shop as well?
The truth of the matter is that the regulatory environment under which Tinapa was established was such that it was designed to fail from the beginning. It was built as a free trade zone, but free trade zone is on the Exclusive Legislative List, which meant that the state government had no control over it. Duke’s Free Trade Zone was like a man who has finished building his mansion and suddenly finds himself being told at the security at the gate that he cannot enter because he the security man holds the key to the mansion. So after what Duke thought he had accomplished at Tinapa, the Nigerian Customs had the last say on the project upon completion.
He got a licence to build a free trade zone but had no regulatory environment to operate Tinapa.
It is rather unfortunate that Duke has been going round ever since he left office glorifying his misadventure called Tinapa. It is a burden of unprecedented scale on Cross Riverians.
Take a look at wherever shopping malls are located, you will find out that they are well located in a rich neighbourhood with high income. But where is Tinapa? First and foremost, it is way out of town where you expect people to fly in to do their shopping. Secondly, what is the disposable income of an average Cross Riverian?
Within the Tinapa environment also, is another drain-pipe called a lake dredged by Duke at a cost of N3billion of tax payers’.
He also talked about Imoke building a convention centre when, according to him, there are conference centres in Tinapa and at the Cultural Centre. Yet he claims to be a tourism expert. Can he sincerely admit that the places he mentioned truly have the facilities for international conferences? Why were golf enthusiasts going to Ibom Golf Course instead of Calabar?