By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
A day to the fourth anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court judgment that enthroned him as Governor of Rivers State, Mr. Chibuke Rotimi Amaechi sat down at an interactive session with select journalists at his official lodge in Abuja.

The simplicity of the man who sits over the state with the theme, Treasure Base of the Nation was all evident. Dressed in a red shirt upon white trousers with white running shoes, Governor Amaechi went down memory lane on the challenges, triumphs and the legacy that he is building. Excerpts:

SIR, how has it been after four years?

I am tired, exhausted and it has been very, very challenging, but a worthy experience.

Gov Rotimi Amaechi

No regrets?

Until the end of your eight years in office that is when you would want to look back and find out whether there are regrets. Certainly, you can’t live a life that there would not be regrets. There could be decisions that we may have taken that we could have taken differently but I am not in a position to recount those decisions until we would have concluded our tenure in office.

It is has been said that Governors after winning re-election slow down in the second term. Is that your experience?

I don’t know if I have seen that, but the truth is that now you are more cautious, you want to complete projects that you are yet to complete so that you don’t leave abandoned projects behind knowing that most Governors that would come in would want to initiate their own projects so as to be recognized by what they have put on ground.

So, you want to be careful and make sure that you complete your projects. If that is what you call slowing down I think that would be wrong.

Like I did promise the state, I said I will try and complete nearly all the projects that we have started. The difference between us and other states is that in our own state we are being accused of doing many things at the same time, we are not being accused of not doing anything at all.

Is it that they are saying you are too ambitious?

My response to them is that we were overwhelmed by what we met on ground and there was a need to respond to them. If you say do gradual response, good idea. But in responding gradually you may address only one or two issues and leave.

You should just be courageous. Courageous enough to the extent that you can engage in as many projects as necessary. Nobody has said all these projects are not necessary. What they have said is that they appear to be too many.

It is not my responsibility to build primary schools, it is the responsibility of the local government councils and I met 1,300 primary schools on ground, no toilets, nothing, no offices, nothing! No auditorium for the children, no library, no ICT infrastructure.

And I felt that if you needed to engage in secondary education and tertiary, that there was the need to deal with primary education and I looked at it after investigation by a committee that the local government councils lack capacity and resources to manage primary education and it was key if we needed to make progress. So we took it over and the salary that we inherited from them was N1.2 billion.

Primary health care

When the Federal Government increased salaries the salaries jumped to N2 billion. So, we are paying the N2 billion to them and that is excluding the N18,000. By the time you add the N18,000 only God knows what it could be like.

Then you look at primary health care. You cannot address the secondary health care if you don’t address the primary health care because it deals with diseases like cough, catarrh malaria and all these are things that people take to secondary health institutions and thereby visiting the health institutions with too many problems that could have been handled at the primary level.

So we went ahead to deal with primary health care and at least we can say that we have between eighty and one hundred of them functioning.

We moved from there to road infrastructure and don’t forget that everything we met on ground were done in the last fifty years and we have been there for just four years.

Devotion in the auditorium

The primary schools I mentioned, 1,300 of them were built in fifty years, but in four years we have added 500 primary schools and not just those six classroom blocks. We are building 14-classroom blocks, all of them with ICT infrastructure, there is an auditorium in the schools, there is a library (hard copy and e-library) and there are 16 toilets and children do not have to run into the bush anymore to ease themselves, they can now do it in a conducive atmosphere.

When I was in primary school it was almost the norm that you hold morning devotion outside when we would queue up and sing and all that, but now we have provided auditorium where you hold morning devotion in the auditorium.

So, we are a different kind of leadership, we are solution oriented. When we say that we are solution oriented we don’t find solutions to immediate problems, we look at the long term effect of our decisions. So, if you look at these our primary schools in the next twenty, thirty years you do not need to do anything about them because we have outsourced the maintenance of the schools.

I usually tell people that when you go to the primary school at Elakahia, you would think that we built it last year, but people forget that it was built in 2008. This is because as soon as a child walks into the toilet and walks out, somebody walks into the toilet to clean it up. The workers are just standing by to ensure that everywhere is clean.

Now we have introduced a reception class where children are not allowed to go into primary one. They are admitted first at the reception level.

Now we are dealing with secondary education just as we are under pressure to deal with secondary healthcare. By God’s grace when the President visits Port-Harcourt between January and February he would commission at least one of our secondary health care facilities which is furnished and equipped to world class standard.

Do you think your initiative on primary education would be a threat to private primary schools?

I don’t know. What we intend to do at the primary school level is that once I say we have finished construction we will require all private schools to meet that standard. If you don’t meet that standard too bad for you because that is the minimum that we expect from anybody who is in an oil based economy.

You have spoken about so many projects you are handling. Is that the reason for the bond that is being criticized by the opposition?

Ask them to tell us an alternative to the bond or the loan. The Rivers people should thank God that they (opposition) were not elected. You cannot run government without borrowing. We have run government for four years without borrowing, but for the first time we said listen, we have too many projects and if we continue to wait for government funds to come in, in trickles.

More or less it is like bridge financing. We have said that by God’s grace we will not leave any loan behind. We will try not to leave any loan behind.

Completing projects

Basically, we need to complete all these projects at the same time we are leaving office so that we can point to people and say, see what we used your money for.

Don’t you think the governors are becoming too powerful in the federation?

Kai (laughs). This imaginary power I hope you people don’t kill us! You walked in here nobody killed you, you chose to put off the air conditioner and it is off. I needed the air conditioner but you said you wanted it off and I am compelled to obey your directive!

I don’t see how governors are powerful. There is just one President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and all governors are loyal to the President. That is the requirement of leadership, so we are all loyal to the President, so I don’t see how you can say we are powerful.

The judgment that brought you to power on October 25 2007 has been described as a landmark judgment. It has also been said that even if you won the first primary of your party but the fact that you were not on the ballot means that  the judgment eroded the franchise of the electorate?

You are not supposed to ask that question for two reasons. The Supreme Court said that in the eyes of the law people were voting for me and you cant question that and they were correct because at the time that the election was taking place, the Binta Nyako’s judgment had set aside Celestine Omehia’s substitution for not complying with her order and there was no appeal against that judgment that succeeded.

And they did not appeal until after the election when they now cross appealed. Which means that as at the time that the election was taking place, Celestine Omehia wasn’t a candidate. He wasn’t. So, the candidate at that time was Chibuke Rotimi Amechi but I wasn’t strong enough to face the former President so I quietly went to Ghana until his tenure was over.

Sir Peter Odili was at your second inauguration. Have you built on the new cordiality?

Yes. We talk to each other. I do more of the visiting don’t forget he was my boss. We exchange ideas and talk to each other.

What of Celestine Omehia?

He is in court, let’s finish with the court!

Rivers State used to be a hot place but it is now cool. How did it come about?

Even my first term was cool. If you carry people along..we introduced town hall meetings to engage the people. Do you need water or road or light or school? It is a participatory government. When everybody is involved, then you will not have tension. It is when you exclude people that you have tension.

Are you worried that it is now a custom that Governors after leaving office are taken to EFCC?

I am speaking as Amaechi. I am worried that you finish serving your people then they invite you to EFCC just to rubbish a Governor. Nobody takes into account the services that you have rendered. Everybody just believes that once you are a governor that you are stealing public money. Some of us have joined to propagate the theory by the Edo State Governor that if your child sits for an exam and if he scores 52 per cent, what has he done?

Passed

If he scores 26 per cent, what has he done?

Failed!

So, if the EFCC is serious about fighting corruption they should focus on the 52 per cent and once they can stop corruption in the 52 per cent, then they have passed. Even if they stop corruption in the 26 per cent, they have not passed (laughter!) For EFCC to investigate 26 per cent they have to take transport from here (Abuja) to the state they are going to, they have to book accommodation and they have to do everything possible to look for the 26 per cent including going to London, going to Abuja looking for the 26 per cent.

Now, even taxi can take them to the 52 per cent. They abandon the 52 per cent completely and begin to look for the 26 per cent that is located in Rivers State, Sokoto or Lagos or Imo. You have no need to vilify the Governors. If you are serious about corruption, eliminate corruption in 100 per cent of the economy or if you cannot, focus on the 52 per cent because if you succeed in the 52 per cent, what have you done?

You have passed! If you make 100 per cent of the 26 per cent, you have still not passed your exam, it is a re-sit. That is the argument. We are helpless victims of the ruling class who have always wanted to be Governors.

The issue of participatory governance as reflected in the town hall meetings and the much reported improvement of primary education in Rivers State, is it something you as Chairman of the Governors Forum would want to instill in your colleagues in the forum?

You are pursuing the 26 per cent again! Everybody has his own style of leadership. There are those who consult by going to see people in the night, those people may be stronger than I am. I may wish to gather everybody in one hall and we discuss.

There are those who would say, I have to visit John, visit Mary, go to places and talk to people and move ahead. But I can hold town hall meetings and say to you I drove down here, I did not fly. I know you have no road and you have no water and you have no school, or hospital and that I have XYZ amount of money from the Federal Government, what do you want me to do for you? The road, or the water, or the school or the health centre?

Or I have done the health centre and we are at stage A or we have paid the contractor up to stage C and they say oh no, no, no, the health centre is just at the foundation level not up to stage A.

In fact, there is a case like that in the photograph I had, the health centre was completed and I announced at the town hall meeting that the health centre was ready and they said no sir, it is not completed. I said lets go there and we drove down to the place and they were right, then the commissioner began to apologise and ….That is one of the benefits of the town hall meetings.

One thing I promised the country was that as chairman of the Governors Forum, I would pursue two things. I talked about constitution amendment and we are vigorously pursuing it and I talked about good governance and you can see that there is virtually no state that you cannot see good governance going on.

Eh?

Yes, compare the set of Governors with the set of past Governors we have had and see if there is no progress from what our predecessors left behind. We are not saying that they did badly, but the benefit that a father derives from his son is the fact that his son will outlive him and do better.

The past governors have done very well but we are leveraging on their successes to improve on good governance. You must credit the current Governors with the fact that there is a huge improvement. But first, do you agree that there is improvement?

Well in some states.

In so many states!

The democratic system of governance has almost disappeared at the local government level as caretaker committees which are alien to the constitution have been foisted on the councils. What is the Governors’ Forum doing to reverse this?

To that extent you are right. At the Governors Forum we have resolved that in the next few months governors who have not conducted local government council elections should endeavour to do that and all governors are very willing to conduct elections. Lagos has just finished their own. Niger finished their own

And they cleared everything? (Laughter)

I don’t know about clearing everything. Don’t get me involved in electoral matters! But I know that the elections were democratic and people were elected. Other states have taken the same position to conduct council elections, so be rest assured that the Governors’ Forum is working with its members to conduct elections in the councils.

One of the issues that has emerged from the meetings of the Governors Forum is their reservation on the revenue sharing formula that gives the Federal Government 52 per cent and the States 26 per cent of the federation revenue.  How is the forum articulating the issue?

We are working with the President in that regard. Currently what we have done is that we are pursuing constitution amendment. The Governors are meeting in that regard, we have met up to some point. I remember some journalists accosted me and asked what was the outcome of the meeting and I said it was inconclusive.

We are bound to hold a second meeting and by next week or thereabout we should hold a second meeting to conclude on all the issues and send a bill, a private member’s bill on the amendment of the constitution to the National Assembly.

What are the specific issues?

I cant tell until we are finished. We agreed at that meeting not to let the public know until we have concluded the final meeting.

I was talking about the Revenue formula?

That is why I said.. we are not in a position to say. Ask the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission that question. What we are saying is that we have a position. We will articulate that position in the next meeting we have and then come up with an amendment bill and send to the National Assembly.