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… As Wike’s Info Commissioner Fires Back
Amaechi Okonkwo, Port Harcourt
The immediate past director general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, has taken a swipe at the Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, alleging that the latter is seizing and dashing state property to his friends and cronies.
This is as the state commissioner for Information and Communications, Paulinus Nsirim, has fired back at Peterside, saying his claims only “reek of resentful bitterness and acrimonious slander.”
The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015 accused the governor of being on a property acquisition spree, cornering no fewer than 400 houses for himself and his cronies, in ways he described as “ridiculous and undignified.”
Peterside pointed to what he termed “the agony the same governor inflicted on some senior civil servants in 2021 when he evicted them from their official residences in the old and new Government Reserved Areas (GRAs) and other areas in Port Harcourt.
The former commissioner of Works expressed shock that Wike had converted some of those houses to his personal property, whilst others were sold-off at ridiculous market value to his friends and cronies.
“Wike will go down as the most greedy and covetous governor in Rivers’ history,” he lamented, adding, “No governor has ever shown such crave for obscene wealth in Nigeria’s history as Wike.”
He added; “Wike’s house in his village, Rumueprikom, with all luxurious appetite that includes a helipad and bullet-proof gadgets, has become the official Government House of Rivers. And in his unbridled lust for estate acquisition, Wike is buying-off more property, including churches, schools, and private family houses, along Ada George area of Port Harcourt, either opposite, behind, or adjacent to his palatial mansion to expand his estate.
“To intimidate his Rivers’ victims more, including the families he forced to relinquish their family legacies to him, Wike has mounted all calibre of surveillance equipment and armed security men to provide 24-hour security around his mansion. On top of all of that, Wike’s appetite to seize-and-acquire, like hell, is enlarging by the day,” he stressed.
Peterside went on; “from Diete Spiff to Chibuke Rotimi Amaechi, we had governors who showed humility and never turned their private houses to Government House; they never oppressed Rivers’ people with open displays of wealth as Wike has done.”
The former member of the House of Representatives accused Governor Wike of giving away over 50 houses he used his office as governor to seize from their rightful owners, located in the Old GRA, Amadi Flats, GRA Phases 1, 2 and 3, to his political friends within and outside the state.
“Governor Wike behaves as if he is in control of the future, disregarding the culture of civility, equity, fairness, empathy and due process associated with the exalted office of the governor; Wike is indeed a shame to Rivers’ people and all that the state represents,” Peterside summed up.
Reacting to Peterside’s accusation the state commissioner for Information and Communications said the attention of the government has been drawn to the allegations and wondered, “for the umpteenth time, how low, petty, jaundiced and begrudgingly spiteful Mr. Peterside has sunk, in his unbridled obsession to discredit Governor Nyesom Wike”.
Nsirim claimed in the reaction released Thursday, in Port Harcourt that Perterside’s latest statement “not only reeks of resentful bitterness and acrimonious slander, but has dangerously crossed the line of decency into primitive maliciousness, unbecoming of a man of his supposed intelligence and claimed academic status.
“From puerile and unsubstantiated allegations of seizing property and dashing them to his friends and cronies, Dakuku Peterside betrays his shallow pettiness by crudely attempting a graphically salacious, yet tasteless description of a functional and operational building, located in the very heart of a throbbing capital city like Port Harcourt, in line with the urban renewal initiatives of the Governor Wike administration, which is transforming Port Harcourt in particular, into a capital city of picturesque beauty”.
Nsirim explained; “For the avoidance of doubt and with sincere apologies for repetition, we wish to appeal to the patience of those who may rightly recall, that we have explained and cleared the air on the recovery of properties, especially in previous rejoinders to this same Dakuku.
“We want to state again categorically, that the Rivers State Executive Council took the decision to recover dilapidated government quarters from civil servants and illegal occupants within Old and New Government Residential Area (GRA), Port Harcourt and reallocate them to competent private individuals.
“A task force was properly constituted by the Rivers State Government to carry out this mandate and the findings of the task force revealed that some of these properties were fraudulently acquired by retired civil servants through dubious processes of allocation and sale and some others also fell into utter deterioration due to the abject neglect and lack of maintenance by the occupants.
“The properties were totally in uninhabitable condition and many were converted into commercial and business uses; in some cases, they were even sublet to private tenants, and some of these tenants used the premises for poultries, fish ponds, barbing saloons, and other unauthorized activities.
“The task force also discovered that some of these properties were found to be under illegal occupants by non-civil servants, some of whom were even non-indigenes. This therefore, necessitated the recovery of these properties as part of government’s urban renewal programme.
“The task force accorded the people the right to follow due process, even though some folks stubbornly toed the ill advised path of non-compliance, which had its well spelt out penalty. Notices were duly served in addition to series of meetings so that nobody was taken unawares.
“The civil servant-occupants, who were affected by the recovery, contrary to the lies and misinformation by Dakuku Peterside, now have alternative private properties through financial support provided by the state government. They are very comfortable in their new residences; a situation which would have been near impossible for them to accomplish at the time, on their civil service emoluments.
“The recovery of these properties and their subsequent reallocation, have been properly articulated as part of the first phase of the ongoing urban renewal programme of the Rivers State Government within the Old and New GRA, Port Harcourt, which is proceeding nicely with scheduled compliance.
“So it completely beats the imagination to identify where Dakuku Peterside came up with the hallucination that people were ‘ejected in a ridiculous and undignified manner’ and the misleading rumour that the governor had cornered no fewer than 400 houses for himself and his cronies and then sold-off at ridiculous market value to his friends and cronies”.
