PDP Crisis Festers because Virtually all Leaders Want to be Vice-President
armoured helicopters and that they can help us clear them. That was how we came to know about the aircraft. So there was no formal records to show the state bought armoured helicopters. It was in the course of that we now wrote and was told to pay about N5 billion as duty and we said how could any state government do this? Why should I spend that amount to pay duty on armoured helicopter which is not commercial? In any case, am I going to use it? The intention was to hand them over to security agencies if we got them. So I personally met with Mr. President and brought it to his notice. He told me that I should put it in writing which I did, that was sometime between August and September 2015 and then I started writing; I wrote to the Chief of Staff, I wrote to the National Security Adviser that you can now take it over from there and they wrote the state government acknowledging it and copied Customs, so I was so shocked when they turned around to say oh, they don’t know who imported the helicopter. What type of country are we in? Must we play politics with everything? When they know it was their minister who imported it, they know when it was imported. They have the documents. How can I import an amoured helicopter, are we in a war zone? If you imported an armoured helicopter, that also shows that there was serious security challenge in the state and even closer to Boko Haram activities. Even in the fight against Boko Haram, the Nigerian Army never used armoured helicopter. They spent over $20 million, which is about N10 billion today. I can tell you with that money, I can execute so many projects. Do you know what it can do in communities?
The elections have been won and lost; can’t APC and PDP work together for the development of the state instead of pulling in different directions?
No, no, no; it is not a matter of Rivers people. You see, the problem is that Rivers State government invested so much money in the election of APC in 2015 so they believe that they owe the minister of transportation, whatever he wants because of the funding; was the funding from his father’s account? It is from Rivers State money, we saw it, even when you write EFCC or Police, they will not do anything, In fact, we don’t even want to go there because it will be a waste of time and energy. The point is that election has been won, there is a government; all they are doing is to make sure that the government does not perform and that will be an excuse to say look, you cannot allow this government to stay again because there is no performance but unfortunately for them, the government is moving so it is greed. Someone believes that look; you mean I am not the one in charge again? I am not the one controlling who is there? That is the problem. They would have made the House of Reps to take over the functions of the assembly and then I wouldn’t have had my budget. All kinds of things happening, including maybe, a declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers.
In the midst of recession you are commissioning projects, where are you getting the money from?
That is why we are running the Jesus economy because where hope is in God, you won’t have problems. You may trivialise it but it is very key, key in the sense that sometimes I won’t know where the money is coming from but all I know is that we have money. But again, what is most important is being prudent. We have money from allocations. If we have N6 to N7 billion, we try to pay salaries and pensioners; then you have internally generated revenue, so I divide it. I say every month, give Julius Berger this, pay RCC this, every month pay this company this, so work is moving on. Again, a project of N1 billion, the previous administration will put it at about N4 billion. Take a case in point of Sakpenwa – Bori Road, the bill of quantity designed for that road was to be done with laterite, a 16-kilometer road, their budget was N16 billion. Now I came and said I want to use sharp sand which is more expensive, do you know that the money we are using to do the road is N9 billion? So if at their own time they were to use sharp sand, it would have been over N28 billion – that was fraud. Some of the abandoned projects were because of the high rate of inflated costs and you come and tell us, you know the terrain of building roads in the Niger Delta is expensive, that is right but not to that extent.
The rerun polls is slated for today, what is your message to Rivers youths?
Well, I have told you that nobody wants to conduct any rerun poll. They want to say they want to conduct the election and kill Rivers people again and say that the place is violent , to create a situation whereby they will say it is a violent state. This rerun, what are you doing it for? The PDP man is already leading with 10,000 votes, he ought to have been declared winner; they have already done that with an APC man. To send these security men to start killing people again? They should allow elections to be free and fair. As I speak to you, I will sleep and PDP will win but from what we have heard, the IG is planning to make sure that our people are slaughtered again, to make sure they bring in the result that has already been written again and which our people will resist and in resisting, they kill our people, then they will come out to set up a panel on how the violence happened. Ordinarily, they know they cannot win that election but they are coming with force so that they will say we said it that if there is security we will win, just mark what I am telling you. They are not coming for the poll, they are coming to announce that APC won. They are coming to begin to arrest our people. That is the instruction from the IG.
What is your view of INEC in of all these?
Is INEC independent? INEC has released the report of the panel that they set up on the last rerun election and indicted the security agencies. SARS commander who I had written several complaints against to the IG was indicted in that report. But the IG ignored me. In advanced climes, those people indicted will not stay a day longer in office. But here in Nigeria nobody cares because they feel they can get away with anything. INEC’s own report has revealed its unpreparedness for the election. It has vindicated all that I was saying. I really don’t have any confidence in INEC which should hide its head in shame and that is why I said there will be no election in 2019. With all authority, there will be no election, don’t deceive yourself. These people have so made up their minds that they don’t care whether Nigeria collapses or not; they are only shouting change, which change? They are only using it to deceive Nigerians.
PDP handed over in 2015 and within a few months the economy is in a into recession. As a participant in the process, tell us, did Nigerians make a mistake in rejecting your party at that poll?
Mistake is an understatement. It is the media and their associates that sold the dummy to the entire country. As of the time Jonathan was there, what was the exchange rate? 175 to the dollar but today we are at N510 to the dollar and by next month, who knows, it may get to N600? People just come with excuses, oh, it was corruption, oh, it was this and that. When you said it was corruption, some of those who are ministers today, were they not governors in the last administration? What rubbish are they talking about? Would there be recession by only the activities of the federal government? When people say that PDP did not perform in 16 years, I just cringe. Who among them that was not a PDP member? Is it Wammako? Is it Aliero, or is it Kwankwaso? So, the point I am making is that Nigerians were misled; the press sold lies to Nigerians. Take for example, when Jonathan wanted a partial removal of subsidy, they brought the issue of Occupy Nigeria, that the whole country would be brought down; now the new administration came and removed the entire subsidy, what happened? What did the media say? The media kept quiet and even hailed the government. So the media is the problem as far as this country is concerned because they could not tell Nigerians the truth. Just because they wanted Jonathan to get out of power. And you know that these guys control the media houses; they used that to their advantage and were able to do what they did. Where are the so-called activists who joined the APC to spread lies? Now, see where we are; before you can correct anything, it will take another eight to ten years. This APC damage has taken the country backwards. Some of us said, allow them, soon Nigerians will know they have dug their own graves. You came and told Nigerians that if they voted for you, you would do this and do that but now you are saying it was the previous government that caused all the problems. You are saying you didn’t tell Nigerians that you would solve the problems in two years, whereas you said then that if you were voted into office, one naira would exchange for one dollar.
For me, the media should tell Nigerians: “Sorry that we misled you so that they can be forgiven.’