■Accuses education minister of using Jonathan’s battle as smokescreen
Tony Okocha is the Chief of Staff to Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, a position last occupied by Nyesom Wike, Supervising Minister of Education. Both Okocha and Wike hail from Obio/Akpor Local Government Area which has been a major battle ground in the ongoing political crisis rocking the state.
Either by human design or providence, Okocha has always inherited political positions left by Wike. Indeed, Okocha was Wike’s Executive Assistant when the minister was Chairman of Obio/Akpor and went ahead to succeed Wike as the council boss. In 2011 when Wike had to vacate the office of Chief of Staff and became the Minister of State for Education, again it was Okocha who succeeded him at the Government House.
Over time, the cordial relationship between Okocha and his erstwhile boss became frosty and was further deepened by the prevailing political logjam in the state. Now they could best be referred to as political foes.
In this interview with CHRIS AGUNWEZE, Okocha descended so hard on Wike and the Grassroot Democratic Initiative (GDI) which is latter’s political platform in the state. He dismissed the group as a gathering of “ragamuffins’’, stressing that the minister is only using to prepare for his governorship ambition, hiding under the ploy of campaigning for President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election in 2015. According to him, the only thing Wike is using to sustain his position as minister was fighting against Gov. Amaechi. He spoke more on this, the state government’s problem with the police commissioner in Rivers and many more. Excerpts…
How tedious is your work as the chief of staff in a government house?
A lot of people have actually given themselves functions and responsibilities sitting here as chief of staff. But my own idea of Chief of Staff is that you are an aide to the governor who is directly in-charge of the day-to-day running of the affairs of the government house. You can also perform sundry functions as directed by the governor who appointed you.
What have been the challenges?
It’s been indeed a rewarding experience, it’s challenging really. We are talking against the backdrop of what everybody in Nigeria knows is happening in Rivers State. A few indigenes of the state, who largely are resident in Abuja, have constituted themselves to feast on the economy of the state and you have a young man who is governor of the state. Who said no, my being here is not to share money. I want to do projects, I made the promises when I was campaigning to be governor, I had in mind to serve my people let’s use the money that accrues to the state to serve the people. That invites the trouble because certain persons think these monies are supposed to be shared among us, we are the big boys, and to put that across, they came up with all sorts of trouble, all kinds of allegations, every day and no day passes without Amaechi did this, Amaechi did that. So, it’s been quite challenging.
Are you saying the struggle to share public funds is at the heart of the political crisis in the state?
No more. No less. I can’t put my finger on any other point that is the cause of it, others are anxillary to the cause.
Some said that your predecessor, Nyesom Wike was not happy that you are the one occupying the office of Chief of Staff he left.
Yes, but he is not God. He actually wasn’t, may be he preferred somebody who was going to be his surrogate. I am not that kind of person but I want to say that some years back we had good relationship when he was Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area. I was his executive assistant. I was doing what I am virtually doing in the government house now; I was in-charge of his office as executive assistant and I am sure I was not found wanting. I discharged my duty creditably. Of course, that wasn’t my first experience. I didn’t cut my teeth there, I had my first experience as an executive assistant way back in 1993 and my performance endeared me to so many people including Wike himself.
Somewhere along the line I felt that yes you are the boss but when you begin to see yourself as a condemner of knowledge and know all and do all, it doesn’t work that way, the reason people have people to watch their backs is that we are all fallible, nobody is infallible, the only person that is infallible is God, so if you think that when you make mistakes that nobody should correct you, then you have a problem.
When you later became Chairman of Obio/Akpor local council, did the two of you disagree one way or the other?
No, except that at some point he wasn’t happy that I wasn’t coming to take directives from him but I discharged my functions as the local government chairman and where necessary, I asserted myself as a political leader.
And there were some allegations that you misappropriated funds to the tune of N50 million?
They were allegations that cannot be substantiated, they just propped them up and I don’t even want to go into that.
Can you recall why Obio/ Akpor local government secretariat was sealed off for such a long time?
What else do I say other than it was the impunity typical of the Nigerian nation state spearheaded by the Nigeria police force under the headship of Mr. Joseph Mbu, the state Commissioner of Police.
Some months ago, the state House of Assembly in its wisdom decided to suspend the Obio /Akpor local government chairman and all his executive arm as a result of the petition that was written to them complaining of mismanagement of funds and the assembly in its oversight function invited the chairman and because of that, the assembly for whatever consideration, decided that the chairman, the deputy chairman and the 17 councillors be suspended while the matter is investigated and authorized the governor to set up an interim leadership at the local government, that was done. The next thing we saw was two days after the swearing in of the interim leadership, the police went and condoned off the place refusing the new caretaker committee chairman from going in, including the staff of the local government from entry and we didn’t want to resort to violence so we went to court, the Federal High Court looked at the matter and took a decision, they gave an injunction restraining the police from sealing off the place but police disobeyed the court order. Look at the amount of money that was lost. Obio / Akpor people have been denied a lot of opportunities because the local government was not working except that we rented a small place called a liaison office to be able to attend to our people. All the revenue that accrued to the local government was not paid, it’s a pity, it’ was the impunity of the Nigerian police under Joseph Mbu.
Is it true that about six commissioners are defecting from Gov. Amaechi’s cabinet to join Wike’s G.D.I?
That was a hoax, it was an imagination, there is nothing like that I can put my life to it. But again he made a proposition, that in their next rally that the six commissioners will be coming to take a podium. That may be true or false because he said categorically that in their next GDI rally that the six commissioners will take the podium to declare for the GDI and before then they would have resigned from the cabinet so let us watch and see. I said then that if it happens, Nigerians should see them as people telling the truth but if it doesn’t, then Nigerians should see them as blatant liars. But as you can see now that GDI has held several rallies after that outburst and not even a single commissioner from Gov. Amaechi’s cabinet mounted the podium and declared for GDI so Nigerians should know that they are blatant liars. It was just a ploy to cause disaffection, distrust and suspicion among us in the cabinet but the relationship that exists between members of the cabinet is so strong that nothing of such ploy can work.
How do you describe Wike’s G.D.I?
G.D.I. is a campaign outfit. How to describe the situation is that you are in a bathroom trying to take a bath and a madman walking in the street that was half nude comes to where you put your clothes and took them away and started running, if you come out of the bathroom and start chasing the madman who will be referred to as a madman.(laughter). So, we will not join issues with ragamuffins, ragamuffins that is how I describe them. It’s a conglomerate of ragamuffins.
Is it true the governor is empowering you to neutralize Wike’s political power base especially in Obio / Akpor?
That would be senseless to be imagined, at my age and level should I still see through the eyes of another person and if I may ask again would it have been possible for Wike to remain as a chief of staff and minister at the same time or would anybody say that I am not qualified to do what I am doing now either in character or in learning, either by reason of my own contribution in this whole system. Did I come to politics to clap hands for anybody, I came in to politics to benefit.
How does the crisis affect governance in the state?
No, it doesn’t affect us, yesterday we held our executive council meeting, our meeting holds on Mondays. If you come here next Monday you will see a full cabinet meeting. If we are in a tensed situation, you will not see any thing like that, if we are not relaxed as you come here you will see everybody running helter skelter. But we are relaxed we are doing our jobs. Their intention is to see how they can refocus this government from doing what we are doing, from what people know us for but we are not distracted for one minute. We leave what we are doing for the judgment of Rivers people and Nigerians.
How do you think the whole thing will end?
Am not God, but I know that the counsel of Ahithophel shall never succeed. It will fail.
Why did Rivers Govt ask for the redeployment of the state commissioner of police?
What I know is that Mbu’s continued stay here raises a serious question about the integrity of the Nigeria nation state, not the Inspector General of Police, I said so because the National Assembly, both chambers, the House of Representatives sat on Rivers matter and passed a resolution that the I.G should transfer Mbu from here. The Senate was not in a hurry to do so, the senate set up a committee or a panel that came to Rivers state, they invited all stake holders and met with them at different times and joined the report which they submitted to the plenary and this Senate in plenary adopted the committee’s report and the resolution was transmitted from the National Assembly to the executive for implementation. So, we will be asking ourselves why was it not implemented which means there is somebody blowing the trumpet. By law the governor ought to be the chief security officer of the state. It is enshrined in the constitution and as such, all security formations in the state are to a large extent answerable to the governor of the state.
In Rivers, nobody can raise a point where Governor Chibuike Amaechi used police or any of the security agencies against any particular individual whatsoever. I challenge them to contradict this. I have a quiet disposition I am not a rabble- rouser. Great minds think ideas, just the little minds think people. How can I be thinking of how to intimidate people where there are a lot of things to put in place for the betterment of the generality of our people. Power is transient you can be here today somebody else will be here tomorrow, it’s not permanent.
The general feeling in the state now is that the governor is at the receiving end of the political crisis. As his chief of staff, is this true?
What I have to say is that Rivers people should learn how to stand up and say no to oppression. There is a philosopher who described man as a yes and no animal and if my memory can carry it now I think it was Franz Fatnon. He said that man is a yes and no animal who says no to oppression and yes to good things of life
It is not Amaechi who is at the receiving end. This is a young man who was speaker for eight years and by divine providence has been governor for six years. He has just celebrated his sixth anniversary as governor.
The issue is not about him, it’s about a group of hirelings desperate for power at the chagrins of the generality of our people who want to feast on the state’s purse so that there will not be developmental projects any where, so Rivers people should know their antics, they are not hiding it.
The post Wike only after Amaechi’s job –Okocha appeared first on The Sun News.
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