Dickson: Bayelsa Remains a PDP Stronghold
Recently, Bayelsa State Governor and the flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party in the December 5 governorship election, Chief Seriake Dickson, was on the last leg of his campaign tour in communities in the state. He spoke to journalists and Ademola
Why do you embark on this community to community tour? It was informed by my drive to change the way politics was played in the state “Part of what I am doing and have been doing is to quietly in my own way change the way politics is played in this state. The level of maturity and tolerance I have brought to bear on the politics is such that you see the opposition campaigning against me as vigorously as I am also campaigning. That is happening for the first time”.
The elites are the problem; they are not doing enough to foster progress in the interest of the state. From the ministerial position they gave you can see how they rate Bayelsa State. From a state that lost the Presidency, where our only permanent secretary has been removed, only God knows what happens next. Our highest customs officers retired. They say we got minister for State for Agriculture I say no it is assistant minister, in effect it is minister without portfolio. The truth is that Bayelsans must wake up, the elites must learn to put the people’s collective interest ahead of their own selfish interests.
Recently you signed a peace treaty with other contestants, what is the situation now
I signed because that was the right thing to do. My campaign is about peace, development and prosperity. You hear me ask people to accord Sylva the respect that is due him. I am not a man of violence unlike those who are merchants of violence and cultism. I believe that a political leader and anyone aspiring to lead people must show example and our society can only develop when you have peace. We have been able to achieve so much because of the prevailing peace and we want it to get better. When Chief Timipre Sylva was the governor, you saw what he did. When he was here as governor, anybody who wanted to campaign against him will be attacked. One of his supporters, Chief Rufus Abadi, knows what happened to him in his house at Otuan but some of our people have short memories. I want to challenge my opponent to do the same and sleep in the communities as I am doing, instead of bragging about federal force. Let him go to our communities and relate with them freely as I am doing”.
What are your achievements in the education sector?
All we are doing is to consolidate so that by God’s grace those boarding schools will start by January and I cannot wait to see these children that I saw in all the communities wearing smart clean uniforms provided by the Restoration Government, with books supplied. Our children are bright and because of the investments we have in education they can compete with their mates elsewhere. That is why I am not surprised that our education rating has gone up from 28 in the national chart to 4th in WAEC results. If we achieve this within this short period then imagine what will happen when I consolidate with all these 25 constituency schools coming on stream.
I urge my people to be confident of victory in the December 5 election and not to be afraid of those in the opposition. APC would become history in the South-South state after the election. There is no room for other parties in the state, especially in the forthcoming governorship election. I have educated people on the need for the PDP to win the forthcoming election in the state because the election is about you and Ijaw nation. PDP has done well for the state and we can still do it again. Bayelsa is for all of us and we must not allow the state fall into the hands of any bad politician. We have no fear of the opposition party and the host of them because Bayelsa is already for PDP.
I urge the people to discard any threat of intimidation from them; prepare yourselves, go out en masse and perform your civic duty with your Permanent Voter Cards.
The opposition can go about plotting any bad thing to win, but it will not work; our dear party has done so well in the development of the state. We are saying no to rigging, PDP is saying no to violence during, before and after the governorship poll; I urge you, on that day, December 5, cast your vote for the PDP, vote for the man you love.
Your administration is about four years, how has it been?
On the workers welfare, everyone knows that in Bayelsa State we don’t owe salaries, we are not in arrears of salaries. We are also not in arrears in paying retirees. Recently, I met with the pensioners and they expressed their appreciation for the efforts of the government.
The only challenge we have is about gratuity which has lingered for about ten years. But in terms of regular payment of salaries, Bayelsa does not owe and we do also not owe pensioners.
What are the measures we have put in place? It’s a combination of prudence and the selfless dedication of my team. For us the people’s interest comes first and that’s why even in my office for three months running, there has been no running cost paid. We don’t also have overhead paid for three months now, all because we want to ensure that salaries of workers are paid.
These are for us first line charges and every government needs to treat this as priority payments. And so, God has been helping and my team has been supporting and dedicated and that’s why we have been able to achieve what most states have not been able to achieve for now.
The bailout that States are getting, Bayelsa is not getting. Since Bayelsa is not indebted, Bayelsa is not given bailout because the bail out is for States that are indebted.
Yes, our commitment to contractual obligation to contractors is what we are thinking about so that development project works can continue, to see that at the end of the day Bayelsa is way up there.
While your government is in clear standing in terms of payment of civil servants worker’s salaries, the same cannot be said of the local government workers. What is your administration doing about this? Will there be a bailout and will your government increase your supervision of local governments, especially as done by the House of Assembly recently? I want to make it clear that as we have demonstrated the payment of worker’s salaries, even in the face of financial difficulty at the state level the payment of worker’s salaries should be made a topmost priority. That is the first thing you do when you receive allocations even before obligations that have to do with running of the office.
For three months running I’ve not received or permitted any remittances to my office. I never permitted any payment of security votes to my office because I felt that priority has to be given to salaries and pension because
I am here as a democratic governor, a champion of democracy and even where I am tested with some of the most violate situations or nasty propaganda, you have seen that I have not arrested any person or disrupted any meeting of the opposition for criticising me People are organizing rallies, including those who were throwing dynamites, shooting and killing people for declaring their ambition, for merely exercising their democratic right because that is their right. It is our conviction that Bayelsans are not fools to listen to them and to believe that when they come you will have plenty of money. It’s all lies. When the people leading APC and most of these characters were here, were you picking money on the streets of Bayelsa?
So Bayelsans, “shine” your eyes.You have a government that means well so all you need to do is to co-operate and be patient. We don’t intimidate anybody, anybody is free to criticize and they are doing so, some are even choosing to defect to other parties. Back to your question, PDP would want all our party members and stake holders back. Even if you don’t have political appointment, it does not mean you are not a party man or woman
these are wages that have been earned. So we are very sad that the situation such as you describe exists at the local governments. The state assembly is vested with the constitutional powers to unravel the reasons occasioning that undesirable situation.
The revenues that accrue to councils has also drastically reduced due to the shortfalls in the allocation from the Federation account as we all get it from the same source. All the same our expectation is that payment of salaries should be given priority attention, especially because there is a deliberate policy since I took over not to interfere with Council funds and not to deduct any money meant for Local Government coffers.
Rather we pay 60% percent of the burden of paying teachers that they ought to bear away from them because of the importance that we attach to education. So with regards to local government salaries we are concerned because in the end I am Governor of everybody and we are running a government that has to protect everybody.
We have a very difficult situation that we are managing ourselves but I find it unacceptable in Bayelsa that any worker going to work will at month end not have his salary. It is not acceptable.
Let me make it clear because you also asked if we would tighten supervision. Local Government Councils as created by the constitution are autonomous and that is why we don’t interfere in things that they do. We only give them general guidelines to be prudent and just as I have obligation to declare my income and expenditure, they also have an obligation and expect that they will be doing so. But we will take more than a passing interest in their financial issues and only as it relates to workers salaries.
Recentlly, you presented an instrument amounting to N46m to kick start the payment of the Bayelsa State Volunteers engaging about 3,000 youths, 600 of whom are graduates and 2,400 non-graduates. Could you please throw more light on this scheme? The Bayelsa Volunteer scheme is being rejuvenated and for those who are talking about graduate unemployment, for those who are saying things that are politically motivated, this government has engaged more youths than any government before me in terms of public employment and public service at all levels.
We feel that we should start off with that. The Bayelsa Volunteers would start up a mechanism for training their members and imparting necessary skills in them for more permanent employment and productive enterprise. I said while presenting the instrument that every month they don’t need to come to me as it will be treated as first line charge, as part of the general salary payment.
So all those beneficiaries, once salaries are paid, they will also get their allowances. They will be given opportunity to do a few things to earn a living, to earn one skill or the other. As I said earlier it is not intended to be a terminal end but stop-gap for the moment. It is to assist them find their bearing, assist them to cope with these difficult times pending when they will get something better and it will be nice for them to have this at the back of their minds before they start thinking they’ve got a pensionable job because that’s not the amount they would need to make a living forever. I enjoin all of them to be law abiding and to be faithful to their assigned duties and to acquire the necessary skills and correct attitude.
The race for the gubernatorial polls is now few weeks away and some members of your party, the PDP are jumping ship. What is your party doing to face up to the challenge? Well, let me assure you that this state is a solid PDP State. In the last general elections we saw that a number of these big wigs did not support the candidate of the mainstream of the party, the flag bearer of the party, we won resoundingly and these were elections that were far more keenly contested and more complicated.
And we campaigned in every constituency. Opposing campaigns were sponsored by our own party members, party stalwarts and candidates were floated from all other parties against our platform but in spite of all interferences, in spite of all the intimidation PDP won resoundingly and you don’t need to look too far. Politics is not magic that you just conjure victory overnight. No, victory comes as a result of a totality of a lot of factors. Just because we have lost to APC at the general election, some fair weather politicians are running to APC as if they can make APC win overnight. Politics is not so. You are talking of a party of three Senators out of three Senators, you are talking of a party that has five out of five Reps members, and even at the worst of times when PDP in Abuja was contending against PDP Bayelsa with the support of faithful party members that we enjoy, we won three Senate seats, five Reps seats, and won 23 seats out of 24. And one is now at the tribunal, though we still believe that even in that seat we should have been declared.
Now, you have eight local government areas, political appointees, commissioners, special assistants, board chairmen and members, you have almost one hundred and five counselors, How do you think you will suddenly, in two, three months almost overnight overthrow that kind of party? And to cap it all you have a performing governor on ground who knows elections, who is giving effective, proactive and consistent leadership to the party, because if I were not in position to give that leadership, let me tell you by now you would not have PDP in Bayelsa. What with the forces that were arrayed against this state and against our party. For more than three years I contended against forces without complaining, stubbornly and rightly resisting them in the interest of this state, in the interest of the Ijaw nation.
This state is a solid, impregnable stronghold of the PDP. Most of these big wigs, for about 15 or 16 years, PDP made all of them seem big. When PDP needed them most, at the last general elections, and for some reasons rightly or wrongly, they supported other candidates, PDP defeated them.
And so while we are not happy that for whatever reasons most of these our brothers, friends and colleagues and they still remain our brothers and friends, even though we may not agree with them politically, there are no real disagreements. These are political disagreements so PDP still has enough room for all of them.
And let me use this opportunity to call on them that it is not too late for them to return to the big umbrella. The PDP umbrella is big enough to contain every one of them. And let me assure them that if there is any thing I know about Bayelsans, this land of proud Ijaw people, it will resist any untoward political calculations. Such stance will not fly in Bayelsa.
This land of proud Ijaw people will not reward our adversary, our opponents will not be rewarded, the gang up that was formed against the Presidency in the previous election will not be rewarded. Bayelsans are wise people, very experienced people. They are not as gullible as what some of these people think they are.
They may succeed in spreading rumour, they may succeed in spreading propaganda but I assure you on the day of voting, Bayelsans will rise up, Bayelsans will speak with one voice, Bayelsans will vote defend their Ijaw home land. This Jerusalem of the Ijaw nation will not be handed over on a platter of gold to those who ganged up to humiliate us in this country.
This time calls for unity in Bayelsa. This is a time that calls for unity and cohesion. This is not a time to tear down this sacred land of Bayelsa. With what they are doing I’m sure Isaac Boro whom we brought back to bury will be turning in his grave to see if these are the leaders we have in Bayelsa. The late Harold papa Preye, the late Melford Okilo will be looking at these characters, who do not know what it means to protect the collective Ijaw national interest.
We in PDP feel that a party that has given us the first President from the acclaimed minority, the PDP remains the Ijaw peoples party. We know that this is politics and our constitution guarantees freedom of association. But beyond selfish interest, beyound selfish ambition there is a higher cause or interest, especially for those who claim the responsibility of leadership.
I am very confident the PDP led government in this state has done enough to count on our record of performance . If a governor in these trying period does even half of what we have done, people will clap for that governor.
Maybe they don’t know that the Ogobiri bridge has progressed . They should go and find out. The Bridge has extended to Ogobiri from Amassoma . What the APC fellows could not do for five years.
I took over 2012 and no one could smoothly access that road. We terminated that contract because it was a conduit pipe for fraud and awarded it to CCEC which is one of the best construction companies. In less than two years they completed it.
Maybe they don’t know that it’s with the strategic intervention we made by giving Setraco three billion naira in partnership with Shell and NDDC that people can now drive to Nembe.
Again drive to the Five Hundred bed that is standing there as a marvel. The Diagnostic centre that is world class, with residential accommodation for doctors and other auxillary facilities are there. State building is not done overnight. When you have a government that has the vision and commitment for development, what you do is to co-operate to move the state forward. Now we feel that with all that we have done, with the peace and security that have returned to our State, that these characters leading APC who only stole and stole even the lives of our young people Bayelsans will now have an opportunity very soon to say whether they want to return to those dark days. Well, who sees light and prefers to return to darkness? I am here as a democratic governor, a champion of democracy and even where I am tested with some of the most violate situations or nasty propaganda, you have seen that I have not arrested any person or disrupted any meeting of the opposition for criticising me.
People are organizing rallies, including those who were throwing dynamites, shooting and killing people for declaring their ambition, for merely exercising their democratic right because that is their right.
It is our conviction that Bayelsans are not fools to listen to them and to believe that when they come you will have plenty of money. It’s all lies. When the people leading APC and most of these characters were here, were you picking money on the streets of Bayelsa? At that time shops were closing and people were leaving Yenagoa. That is not happening now because your monies are not stolen from Abuja. Your monies are not given to cultists, your monies are now spent where they should be spent - for the people’s business. Are we content? I will say no, because our resources are limited but you all know that we mean well and to do the best that there can be.
So Bayelsans, “shine” your eyes. You have a government that means well so all you need to do is to co-operate and be patient. We don’t intimidate anybody, anybody is free to criticize and they are doing so, some are even choosing to defect to other parties. Back to your question, PDP would want all our party members and stake holders back. Even if you don’t have political appointment, it does not mean you are not a party man or woman.