Amaechi’s giant strides in office

Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi,
Rivers State governor.Although it inherited a mountain of problems, the Rotimi Amaechi administration in Rivers State is poised to fast-track development in the state. In this piece, John Ogbedu itemises the various policies and programmes evolved by the state government to ensure all-round development and make life less burdensome for the people.

On October 25, 2007, history was made in Rivers State (the “Treasure Base of the Nation”) when the highest court in Nigeria, the Supreme Court, ruled that the Rt. Honourable Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, the erstwhile Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, should be sworn in immediately as the governor of Rivers State.

The court upheld the submission by Amaechi that he was the duly -nominated candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State for the 2007 general elections in the state, a ruling that replaced the then state governor, Sir Celestine Omehia, with Amaechi, whose administration can aptly be said to be a “child of circumstance”.

From the onset, Governor Amaechi acknowledged the enormity of the tasks ahead of him and the need for his administration to succeed, particularly in areas where his predecessors had been found wanting. There was discontentment among the political class, including the ruling PDP, revolving around complaints of marginalisation by a clique in government. Social life in the state, especially in Port Harcourt , the state capital, was almost non-existent.

Also, investments by local and foreign entrepreneurs were not forthcoming because of the precarious security situation.

Security
Governor Amaechi assumed office at a time when security in the state was at its lowest ebb. Anarchy was let loose by rampaging militants and kidnappers, who had vowed to make the oil-rich Niger Delta region ungovernable for its leaders and ensure that investors in the region, especially foreign ones, left the Niger Delta , all with a view to crippling the nation’s economy.

At the dawn of the Amaechi administration, insecurity was the order of the day in Rivers State. There was mass desertion of people and businesses from the state until the Amaechi-led government thought it wise to continue with the state of emergency in the state earlier declared by his predecessor, Sir Omehia. The government invited the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) to assist the police in maintaining law and order in the state.

This strategy paid off handsomely, as the menacing activities of cultists, militants and kidnappers in the state were highly curtailed. JTF chased the social miscreants right into the creeks, where most of them had their operational bases. For the first time in many months, relative peace returned to Rivers State and companies that had planned to close shop in the state had a rethink and stayed on.

To heal wounds arising from many years of cult activities in the state, the Amaechi government set up the Justice Kayode Eso Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to identify the root causes of cultism and incessant communal clashes in the state, with the sole aim of curbing the trend. Many revelations have been made at the public sittings of the commission in Port Harcourt and it is expected that the TRC would make far-reaching recommendations that would reduce cultism, militancy and communal clashes in Rivers State to the barest minimum.

Rivers State Economic Advisory Council
Soon after assuming office, Governor Amaechi put together a formidable team of professionals and experts in various fields of endeavour in the state to map out strategies for fast-tracking development in the state, while ensuring that such strategies were all-embracing and easy to accomplish without much encumbrances.
Chaired by a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, Professor Lulu Briggs, the team has made far-reaching recommendations to the state government, which is already implementing some of them. These include the need for widespread consultation among stakeholders in the state before embarking on major projects affecting the lives of such stakeholders.

Consequently, many summits in different spheres have been held in the state at different times to tap ideas from people in the state on how to move the state forward, and the responses have been tremendous. The Amaechi administration has promised to ensure that recommendations arising from such summits are implemented to the letter.

Tackling Unemployment and Poverty
One of the tasking problems that Governor Amaechi inherited from the short-lived Omehia administration was the high rate of unemployment, particularly among youths, in the state. Ex-Governor Omehia had tackled this menace through the setting up of a Peace and Rehabilitation Committee to handle the rehabilitation of repentant cultists and militants in the state. However, laudable as it was then, this measure did not reduce youth unemployment to a substantial level.

Governor Amaechi further took the bull by the horns by revitalizing the peace and rehabilitation committee , giving it more powers, not only to rehabilitate repentant cultists and militants, but to source for other avenues to proactively engage unemployed youths in productive ventures that would turn their impressionable minds away from crimes.

According to the state Commissioner for Employment, Mr. Emma Chinda, although the Amaechi administration inherited about 2 million unemployed youths in the state, it is bent on reducing the figure to the barest minimum. To complement the efforts of the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency (RSSDA) in the area of youth employment, government has also rolled out what it calls the Window of Opportunities Programme (WOP).

The WOP covers entrepreneurship skills in the waste-to-wealth project, agriculture, printing and publishing, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), cosmetics, small-scale industries and beautification of the environment. Meanwhile, the first batch of 123 successful beneficiaries of the RSSDA educational project, comprising 57 male and 66 female of Rivers State origin spread across the country, are expected to commence their entrepreneurial skills acquisition training in Port Harcourt by August this year.

To further reduce unemployment in the state, the government has mandated construction companies handling construction works for the State to employ at least 20 per cent of the local people to work for them on such projects. Again, a bill has been sent to the State House of Assembly to establish a micro-credit to empower the people in order to enable them earn a living on their own.

The Amaechi administration, said the deputy governor, Engineer Tele Ikuru, is poised towards fighting poverty to a standstill in the state. The government, he said, believes that capacity building for human development remains a cornerstone for societal growth.

Consequently, the state government has also introduced a special project designed to help the rural areas to make a clean break from poverty because, as the deputy governor put it at a recent public function, “some rural people have the zeal to excel, but lack assistance and encouragement, which government would now give to them”.

Nevertheless, the government, speaking through the director of the RSSDA, Mr. Bolaji Ogunseye insisted that the “beneficiaries of the RSSDA scheme would sign a bond with the agency (RSSDA) to guarantee that they remain connected to their roots and committed to the development of the state after their training”.

Education
The state government has shown its commitment to uplifting the standard of education in the state through the rehabilitation of primary and secondary schools across the state. The supply of teaching aids, which were formerly in short supply in schools, has been beefed up.

At the tertiary level, government said it has continued to fund the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST), College of Education and The Polytechnic, Bori, to the best of its ability. About N2.5billion has already been spent on the RSUST to ensure the full accreditation of its courses, while lecturers in the university are being encouraged and assisted by government to pursue Masters and doctorate degree programmes in their respective disciplines.

The state government said it planned to relocate the university from its present site at Nkpolu-Oroworukwo in Port Harcourt due to lack of adequate space for the proposed expansion of the institution. Accordingly, government said it had set aside the sum of N8billion for the commencement of construction work at the new site in Ikwerre Local Government Area of the state.

Said the deputy governor, Engineer Ikuru: “When the government raised the issue of relocating the RSUST, a lot of people said, ‘No, let us not waste such money’. Some people reluctantly supported him. But I am happy to announce that every person has had a rethink and another look at the school and people now seem to be saying that the institution should not remain the glorified secondary school it is in its present site”.

Supervision of Local Government Administration
The Amaechi government said it is conscious of the important role that the third tier of government, the local government councils, have to play in actualizing the dream of transforming rural areas in the state and giving them a sense of belonging. In a chat with newsmen in Port Harcourt recently, the state Commissioner for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Community Affairs, Hon. Tammy Danagogo, said government would ensure that the local governments perform to the optimum and that they justify the allocations given to them from the Federation Account every month.

“The way we do it is, one, we ensure that whatever allocation that is given to the local government areas from the Federation Account; they get it in full without one kobo being deducted by the state government”, said Danagogo. He continued: “The governor has made it clear that no form of deduction should be made from the local government level and that is the first step towards ensuring that nobody can say it is the state government that is making them not to perform well”.

To ensure accountability at the council level, the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Community Affairs has been monitoring the implementation of the councils’ budgets regularly, ensuring that their expenditure is in consonance with the projects they are executing at any point in time.

To encourage excellence among the local government councils, the Amaechi administration has introduced the “Excellence in Local Government Initiative” to make the councils to perform optimally. The initiative involves many stakeholders in a particular local government, not just government officials, assessing their performances. In all, there are 30 assessors per local government area made up of assessors each from the Ministry of Local Government and House of Assembly, while the other 20 assessors are drawn from private bodies and international organisations.
According to the local government commissioner, “the excellence in local initiative is a carrot-and-stick approach; where there will be competition among the councils, with the best chairman receiving a cup from the state government plus money incentive.”

“The ministry will also execute a special project for the victorious local government. Then, the worst three local government chairman areas would be punished the State House of Assembly, which has the statutory right to punish and suspend those local governments that have been assessed to be doing nothing”, he added.

On chieftaincy matters, the state government has set up a chieftaincy resolution committee in the local government ministry to nip chieftaincy disputes in the bud before they escalate to unmanageable proportions of large scale disagreements and subsequent violence in affected communities, with the youth and cult groups capitalizing on their support for the different factions involved in the crisis to cause mayhem.

Health Matters
Conscious of the dictum that “health is wealth”, the Amaechi administration has strengthened the health sector by providing necessary facilities to various health establishments in the state, particularly at the primary healthcare level, to enable them perform optimally. Many health centres in rural areas have been refurbished while the government plans to establish at least one health centre in each ward in the state.

Governor Amaechi has retained his predecessor’s free medical care offered to children below five years old and elderly people of 60 years and above in all government-owned health institutions in the state. It has gone a step further by offering free ante-natal services to pregnant women who are indigenes of Rivers State, while all pregnant women in the state are now entitled to free medical care in the first 24 hours of their admission in any government health facility.

Government, in partnership with the private sector, under its Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement, has begun the construction of a multibillion naira1000-bed mega hospital in Port Harcourt while it has also set aside the sum of $50m for the construction of a 250-bed Women and Children Specialist Hospital , also in Port Harcourt . It would suffice to say here that the government, under the PPP programme with a private organization, the Silver Bird Production, has also embarked on the construction of a modern multibillion naira International Conference Centre in the state capital.

Roads/Drainages and Sanitation
Within its first month in office, the Amaechi administration had embarked on the reconstruction and asphalt-surfacing of most streets in major towns in the state that were gradually becoming a menace and eyesore to motorists and other members of the public. Internal roads, with drainages, were given a facelift.

In a similar vein, the government has begun work on the N6.5billion flyover bridge at Eleme Junction in Port Harcourt as well as the flyover bridge at the Eliozu Junction along the East-West Road , a major gateway to and out of Port Harcourt from the western axis of the country. When completed, the flyover bridges are expected to decongest traffic at the ever-busy East-West Road and the Aba-Port Harcourt

Expressway
Before now, many roads in the state were built without provision for drainages. However, Governor Amaechi’s road projects, including those being rehabilitated, have made adequate provision for the construction of drainages to ensure the longevity of such road projects in the state.

In its determined efforts to return Port Harcourt , the state capital, to its glorified status as the Garden City” of yore, the administration has since begun the demolition of illegal structures it said were defacing the beauty of the city. Though hues and cries from the affected persons have been the order of the day in the state, the state Commissioner for Urban Development, Barrister Osima Ginah, said such demolition is unstoppable if Port Harcourt must reclaim its lost glory.

As he put it: “Government has no plan to demolish waterfront settlements in Port Harcourt City , but to restore the city to its status as the “Garden City” of Nigeria. So, any structure that falls within government’s plan will be demolished and compensation paid to deserving owners”.

He added that government would also negotiate with landlords of any waterfront that falls within government’s plan with a view to paying compensation to them while all the open fields in the old Port Harcourt Township would be restored.

Meanwhile, the Mile 1 motor park that the government said had been illegally established at the Abali Flyover Bridge in Mile 1, Diobu, Port Harcourt , has been cleared of all commercial vehicles doing business there. Makeshift structures at major roads in the city have also been demolished to ensure the success of government’s plan to expand most of the internal roads in Port Harcourt .
Industrial Relations

With its people-oriented programmes, the Amaechi administration has enjoyed relative industrial peace in the state, especially with the industrial unions, which have been quite understanding and cooperative with the government. Since the governor came on board in October last year, the state had not witnessed any form of strike from any of the industrial unions in the state.

Recently, the administration put smiles on the faces of pensioners, who had been owed their pension and gratuities within the last 10 years. Following the inability of previous administrations in the state to pay them their arrears of pension and gratuity, the affected retired staff had headed to court to press for the payment of their entitlements. In 2003, the pensioners had the upper hand in the case, but the then administration of Dr. Peter Odili did not obey the order of the court directing that the pensioners be paid all their entitlements.

In July 2008, Governor Amaechi, whose coming into office was propelled by adherence to the rule of law, courtesy of the Supreme Court, approved the release of the sum of N160m to the Ministry of Justice to effect the payment of the entitlements of the pensioners. A committee, headed by the attorney-general, has been set up in the Office of the Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice in the state to effect the payment without further delay.

Agriculture
Farmers in the state also ahve every cause to thank the administration for its subsidy and provision of relevant inputs to them to boost agriculture in the state. Government has also ensured that the input like fertilizer reach the farmers directly, with no recorded case yet of diversion of the product (fertilizer) as the case in some parts of the country. Being a predominantly fishing state, government has also provided fishing inputs to accelerate fish production in the state.

Information Machinery
The state information machinery has also received a boost from Governor Amaechi by way of the refurbishment of existing facilities at the State Government-owned media establishments, notably the Rivers State Newspaper Corporation, publisher of the Nigerian Tide newspaper, and the Rivers State Broadcasting Corporation. The training of staff and beefing up of the facilities in the State Ministry of Information have also been given priority by the administration to improve productivity in the ministry.