11th July, 2015
Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, has ordered the Rivers State command to provide security for the 22 Caretaker Committee Chairmen appointed by Governor Nyesom Wike.
Wike announced the police boss decision not to barricade all the local government secretariat on Saturday during a live radio programme in Port Harcourt.
He said he has directed all the newly inaugurated caretaker committee members to go to their various councils and resume under the full protection of the police.
“I have spoken to the IGP who agreed that a subsisting court judgment would be obeyed by the police. So if you see Policemen at the LGA Secretariat they are to provide security to Caretaker committee to inaugurate their members”.
Reacting to threat by APC and its elected local government chairmen, the Governor said APC and the sacked 22 local government chairmen have the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court to ventilate its grievance rather seek self-help.
On the insecurity in the state, Wike assured that security agencies have asked for some logistics which the state government has obliged.
He called on Rivers people to be patient because a new Commissioner of Police has just be posted to the state, barely a week ago and requires to settle down.
On whether he is jittery about what would be the outcome at the election tribunal that is challenging his election by the APC Governorship candidate, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, he said he has confidence in the legal team defending his election at the tribunal.
He cautioned Rivers people to be wary of the propaganda of the APC on the proceedings at the tribunal because the real case has not even started and what has been going on is argument on motion and counter-motion.
Wike in response to a question on why Rivers students could not participate in the Junior Secondary School JSS (Junior WAEC) Examinations, lamented that the previous administration denied the children from taking examination because the N66 million indebtedness.
On the issue of borrowing 30 billion naira in 30 days, Wike said his administration met uncompleted projects awarded and abandoned by the previous administration with months of unpaid salary arrears to pensioners and workers. “To meet such obligations, my administration had to source for funds through loans,” he said.
He said he had the option of refusing to continue with the abandoned projects and award new ones but didn’t take that because government is a continuum.
On the renaming of Rivers State Polytechnic, Bori, after Kenule Saro-Wiwa,the slain Ogoni Environmental rights Activists, Wike said Saro-Wiwa deserved to be immortalized with the naming of an institution after him.
“The late Saro-Wiwa was the first Commissioner for Education, a renowned playwright, an academic and one of the great sons of the Niger Delta struggle and he deserves to be honoured not with a street name that can be easily forgotten but an institution that those who will graduate from it would be awarded the certificate bearing that name,” Wike argued.
In furtherance to that, he said he would be presenting a bill to Rivers State House of Assembly that would effect the change to the new status.