Gov. Omehia tells Rivers crisis story, says: I’ll vacate office, if..
KUNLE OYATOMI & OCHEREOME NNANNA
Sunday, August 26, 2007

Since he assumed office as the governor of Rivers State, Nigeria’s foremost oil yielding state, Celestine Omehia has known no peace from militants and cultists, who have become an integral part of the political landscape of the state. A couple of weeks ago, he took the bull by the horn and mobilised the police and military with the help of President Umar Musa Yar Adua against them. Calm has returned to the embattled state capital, Port Harcourt, but a dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed for an initial one week has been extended.

While some prominent players in the South South, including Ijaw leader, Edwin Clark and Alabo Graham-Douglas, have called for state of emergency as the only solution to the problem, prominent traditional rulers like King Dappa Pepple of Bonny; Amanyanabo of Okrika, T. J. T. Princewill; Oba of Ogbaland, Eze Chukwuemela Nnam Obi and other top elders and political leaders of the state have vehemently kicked against the idea. We were with Omehia in the Rivers State Government House along with colleagues from two other Abuja-based newspapers when he granted this insightful interview which, to a very interesting extent, opens a window to the situation in the state.

LET us start from the beginning. How did you become the governor of Rivers State?

Well, I became the governor of Rivers State by the special grace of God. No person can take the credit except God Himself, I can tell you, and you will appreciate that with me. A year or two ago, we all started aspiring on who succeeds our boss, Dr. Peter Odili. And on the very last day we were to pick forms for nomination, he directed that forms should be picked for three people, and that I should step down.

Who were the three?

The three were Dr. Abiye Sekibo, former minister of transport, Chief Austin Opara, former deputy speaker, House of Representatives and Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, former speaker, Rivers State House of Assembly. The forms were picked, and when I met him to say, “Sir, you know I am interested in this race,” he said that he understood that clearly. And that if everybody wanted to stay back in Port Harcourt, who would be with him in Abuja assuming God gave him the opportunity to be president of Nigeria.

So, he wanted me around him again and again. Naturally, as a human being, I felt bad because my mind was made up on trying my luck at home. But I told him: “Your Excellency, if you would want me to go with you to Abuja, fine. The deputy speaker has made a name at the national level; the transport minister has also made a name at the national level. The speaker has also made a name. I am the only local one among them, and I would have liked to stay back at the local level. Let me represent all of you who will be at the national level”. He said no.

Eventually, I gave it up and resumed my usual life. It went on and on, and on the day of the governorship primaries, he called a meeting and directed that every person should step down, again, for Rotimi Amaechi. And that’s how the winning you hear about came about. The governor told Austin to step down and also Abiye and others. And that’s how the winning by Rotimi Amaechi came about.

I can tell you the result would have been different if every person was allowed to contest the primary election. Eventually, the candidature of Rotimi Amaechi became a question in the national equation. And eventually the party decided that he should step down. I didn’t know how it happened but let me tell you my own side of the story. Mr. President and the national chairman of the party came to flag off the electioneering campaign in the South-South, and Port Harcourt was the headquarters of the South-South Zone. All of us were in the field.

At a point, the chief detail to Dr. Odili, the then governor, said the governor wanted to see me. I left the field and I thought, as usual, he may have forgotten something in the house and wanted me to go and pick it. I went to where he was seated. He was seated on the same chair with the then president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the national chairman of the party, Senator Ahmadu Ali and other party chiefs. And then he (Odili) turned to the president and said, “This is Mr. Celestine Omehia. He is the flagbearer of the party.” All that the president said was: “Congratulations, Mr. Omehia.

I am going to announce you now”. At that time, it was all like a movie to me. I did not understand that there was actually a change. I made to leave, but they told me to sit down with them. The president said they should call Rotimi Amaechi so that he will inform him that I had become the flagbearer of the party.

They looked for Rotimi and couldn’t get him, not knowing that he had gone back home after getting a hint of the change. So, after a while, the president said, “Okay, Mr. Governor, bring Celestine to Abuja tomorrow. I will announce him myself”. The following day, being Sunday, we did not go to Abuja. On Monday, the party called a stakeholders meeting, every person who mattered in PDP in Rivers State was in attendance.

There and then, they took a decision that they wanted a consensus candidate, and Mr. Celestine Omehia was the candidate. I can tell you, in the meeting was Rotimi Amaechi, Dr. Sekibo, and Austin Opara, all of them that mattered, were in the meeting. They signed the attendance register. It was agreed that they should write to the president as the leader of the party and the national chairman and to Chief Tony Anenih as the chairman Board of Trustees of the party that Celestine Omehia was the consensus candidate of the party in Rivers State.

They wrote this letter and signed.

The following day, Tuesday, we all left for Abuja. I had to go because I had to be introduced. We first went to Chief Anenih’s house and Dr. Odili submitted the letter. Chief Anenih’s suggestion was simple. He said: “Rotimi, you should thank God that the choice of Mr. Omehia means that the post has not left your family.You are first cousin to Mr. Omehia. You are also of the same political family, the Restoration Team of Dr. Peter Odili.” So, Rotimi got up and gave him a handshake and all of us got up. He now advised me that I was now the flagbearer and by the grace of God PDP will win in Rivers State.

Because of the strength of the PDP in Rivers State, of all the states, we were sure of Rivers. Chief Anenih asked that when I win, I should carry every person along. All of us thanked him and left for the national chairman’s house. He entertained us and we handed the letter to him. We left Dr. Ali’s house and proceeded to the house of the president. It was on the way that Rotimi branched off to Transcorp Hotel, and the rest of us went on to the president’s house. We submitted the letter again.

When people talk about me contesting the primaries or not, they should know all these details so that the picture will be clearer. The point is that having been selected by the party as its consensus candidate, you don’t need primaries anymore. The consensus agreement, which is allowed by the constitution of the party, does not call for primaries anymore. The following day after we submitted these letters, I was given the flag of the party at the national secretariat of the party. That was how I became the governorship candidate of the party in Rivers State.

What was the atmosphere like? Was it actually unanimous?

There was no disagreement by anybody, including Rotimi Amaechi himself. If there was disaffection, first he would not have attended the meetings. If there was disaffection, he would not have been with us when we submitted the letters. Once the submission of the letter to the chairman of the party was complete, the assumption was that there was no objection anymore. This was when anyone who had objection would raise it and state his reasons.

But before the party wrote to Independent National Elec toral Commission (INEC) substituting his name, he now went to court. He did that, probably to preempt INEC. But you see, the party had already taken a decision. The question is, at what time was there a change? Was it the day he went to court? Or days before he went to court? The change had been concluded before he went to court.

What do you think actually led the party to change the candidature of Rotimi Amaechi?

You see, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had long started investigating some of the candidates. The EFCC wrote the party saying, “We are investigating some candidates in your party including Mr. A, B, C,” and Rotimi Amaechi’s name was on the list. When eventually he was invited by the Administrative Panel, then the party made up its mind for a change. Of course, he wasn’t alone, there were many in the PDP who were affected, not only Rotimi Amaechi. The party legally has a right to pick any candidate, to drop any candidate and to substitute any candidate. It is the constitutional right of the party.

However, that right of the party has ordinarily been modified by the Electoral Act, which demands that in order not to embarrass any person, you have to give reasons, cogent and verifiable, for dropping a candidate. So, having been informed by EFCC that some of its candidates, including Rotimi Amaechi, were under investigation, the party didn’t need to wait until the outcome of the investigation before taking the self-preservative step of substituting the candidate. The party also knew that it must substitute candidates within 60 days before the election. If you wait until that time expires and you lose your chosen candidate as a result of the EFCC’s investigation, you can no longer substitute because there is a legal provision on that.

That was why the party had to substitute within the legal time frame allowed by the laws. I am not claiming that I have full information on why the party took its decision. But it was crystal clear that the party got information, and the PDP was not the only one in this situation. The parties got this information that many of their candidates were under investigation. It is only a tree that will be told it would be cut down tomorrow and the tree would remain there.

Every human being will run away to find an alternative position to hide. The party is not a tree. But having noticed that the party had been informed of EFCC’s investigations, Rotimi Amaechi quickly went to court. He would not have gone to court if he did not know about it. No one ordinarily goes to court unless there is something he knows about which compels him to do so. Something is pursuing you before you go to court. And, of course, INEC in its affidavit said he was under investigation by the EFCC and indictment by the Panel of Inquiry, and the INEC accepted the party’s letter.

Chief Anenih advised reconciliation. What have you done in that direction?

There is a saying that the unity of a family does not lie in disagreements but ability to reconcile after disagreements. There must definitely be disagreements before members of a family can talk of reconciliation. I tell you, several efforts have been made, even by the immediate past governor of Rivers State, Dr. Odili, to the extent that Rotimi slammed the phone on him and had to change his numbers so that no one would call him anymore to withdraw the case in court.

I can tell you authoritatively that Dr. Odili called him several times. Amaechi went to Ghana and stayed there for a long while without taking his calls, changed his numbers without informing him, and all efforts by any other party member or big-wig in the state and even the whole country failed. On my own part, I made several efforts, as his elder brother. It may interest you to know that Rotimi Amaechi and I are very close first cousins.

My father’s house and his father’s house are only separated by a fence. And I tell you, the community we come from, Ubima, had to send three reverend fathers to him in Abuja, and he refused to see them. They came back. His pastor had already told him he would be governor. No wahala. So, every attempt by every person that mattered in Rivers State failed.

Do you think what happened over this candidacy issue has anything to do with the current spate of violence in Rivers State?

I don’t want to indict anybody. All I know is that there were some miscreants, some criminals who have been disturbing the peace of the state. Whoever is behind them, I cannot point to for now. Until proved, everybody remains innocent.

In fact, there have been insinuations that those who unleashed violence were some of the boys you people, including yourself, used to conduct campaigns and win election, but have now decided to discard? Is that the correct story?

That is not correct. If you ask any person in Rivers State, he will tell you that from the first day I stepped in as the flagbearer of the party, I made it abundantly clear that I had no business with thugs or cultists or militants in my campaigns. In fact, the first thing I decided when I came back with the flag was that before I embark on the campaigns I must dedicate the campaigns to God. I called for an interdenominational service at the Civic Centre here. The whole Rivers State gathered and we prayed and prayed for the campaigns.

You can carry out your own investigations. Then the following day, we hit the road and started our campaigns. And every attempt to black mail us – oh we shall hit you in so-so local government, we shall stop your campaign, we shall attack you – all these had no effect on my campaigns because I still went on as if they never existed and I completed my campaigns.

There was one campaign I was doing in a place called Ndele. Ndele is in Emohua Local Government. They called me. I got a text: “So you are going to Ndele. If you come back alive know that we are no more militants”. I called the number. They did not pick. I called again. They did not pick. I called a third time and they answered. I said to them that Ndele is in Ikwerre ethnic nationality and I am from Ikwerre.

I will go there and come back and nothing will happen. I went to Ndele, finished my campaign, went to the chiefs, I visited the paramount ruler, Chief Alete, I visited some other elders and came back and nothing happened. You see, most of the things they do are mere threats for you to bring money.

For you to be scared. The moment they see fear in you, of course they will ask for money or else. I can assure you that none of these criminals wants to die. No thief wants to die. He wants to live to enjoy his loot and to continue stealing. No militant wants to die. It is just that he is carrying gun and instills fear in you.

It is coincidence that when you came in as governor, this problem came up. Your mother was even kidnapped…

Yes, my mum was kidnapped after the elections but before the swearing-in. That goes to prove what I told you that I have no relationship with cultists and thugs. And it was a way to hurt me and draw my attention to them so that I will continue to fund them – because all they want is money, “use us and give us money.” And I refused to use any of them. One other thing about them is that once you use them once you must use them forever.

Your life is in danger if you stop paying them. The life of your family is in danger if you stop paying them. And then they would like to run the government for you in their own style. And the respect the society should have for you will diminish and it will tilt to them and more so, you won’t have the power to run the government.

So, when you calculate these disadvantages you will say to yourself there is no need. It is either I am a governor or I am not a governor. And I can tell you, if the worse comes to the worst, if the Federal Government is not interested again in fighting the cultists and bringing peace to Rivers State; I am ready to go, instead of me to fund the cultists, instead of me to abdicate my functions as governor, I go. I am not interested in legitimizing the illegitimate.

Are you happy with the state of affairs after the measures you took?

The state of affairs, I can assure you, has improved. We had a situation where the cultists were being recognised more than the government itself. We had a situation where, as an ordinary citizen, if you were holding a social party or ceremony, they needed to be paid before you can even start. In some local governments like Okrika where Ateke Tom comes from, you cannot do any burial without paying homage to Ateke. It has been like that for three, four years now.

We inherited it. In Marine Base, you cannot hold any cer- emony without paying homage to Soboma George. They were acting like government within government.

Then I had to do something. I made a broadcast. I warned them not to harass innocent citizens of Rivers State. I warned parents to warn their children who were members of the cult groups to withdraw, if not we would clamp down on them. Of course, what we got was attacks and threats on us. But before then, having noticed that we had cultists and all these militants, I made some group offers, that any person who is a cultist or militant and wants to change, that the Rivers State Government is ready to rehabilitate such persons.

We are ready to train you to any university of your choice. We are ready to finance you to any skill of your choice. And to show them how serious we are, I set up what I called Peace and Rehabilitation Committee, which is still on now. I mandated them to go from one area to the other, from local government to local government to talk to these miscreants and to see how many of them were ready to change.

Let them tell us what they want to do to make a better life and the Rivers State government is ready to pick the bill. Some people took us up on the offer. We rehabilitated some, those who wanted salon business, agriculture…

How many people have you rehabilitated so far?

The Peace and Reconciliation Committee will have the figures. The one I can easily remember now are two youths who wanted to be pilots. We have gotten admission for them in a South African institute and they are flying to South Africa for their training. Those who said they were in the Faculty of Law in the University of Science and Technology (UST); we have paid two years school fees for them. But majority of them are still there. One thing you must know is that all these cultists are under the influence of drugs. Over eighty per cent of them are not normal, and that is why we want to rehabilitate them.

We want to reorientate their lives so that they can come back to be useful members of society. We are ready to do that because we believe that they are indigenes and citizens of Rivers State. We believe that we owe responsibility to every citizen and indigene of the state. You cannot say “on behalf of the good people of Rivers State.”

It is our responsibility to carry the needs of the good, the bad and the ugly, but they have to give us a chance and be law abiding. After this offer, most of them failed. One day, they took to the streets, and started shooting from Marine Base to Borokiri area, and I said these activities of cultists must come to an end. I had to get out the Joint Task Force – the army, police, air force – all of them and put them on the streets. I got permission from the President, invited the Inspector- General of Police, invited the Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Defence Staff. That is where we are today.

How do you distinguish between militants and cultists?

Both militants and cultists are criminals. Ordinarily, the militants are one means of fighting against the neglect of the Niger Delta, fighting against what is seen and known as the dehumanisation of the people of the Niger Delta, to see what reparations we could get back from the Federal Government and the oil companies. Honestly, I am not against that move of getting reparations. If it is emancipation of the Niger Delta, definitely all of us will be in support of the improvement and development of the Niger Delta.

This is the yearning and aspiration of every person born and brought up here, even me. But when the emancipation has turned to militancy, and the request which should be a diplomatic effort turns to carrying of guns, it becomes criminal. Only those who are trained and licenced to carry guns are legitimate. If you are not licenced to carry gun, you are a gun runner. You mature from cultism to militancy. Cultism is a brand of militancy. Both of them carry guns, it is a matter of approach and co-operation.

What about the call for state of emergency ...?

It is pure naivety to call for emergency rule when we are trying to sanitize the system. The system we inherited, the system which says you must protect the people from being humiliated by illegality or militants and because some people are benefitting from the activities of the militants, they now believe that the only way out is to call for emergency rule in order to continue with their benefit. The issue of state of emergency is not just what you get with a tap of fingers.

Many things must come to bear. It must get to a deteriorating situation that the whole state, not just Port Harcourt alone, is in trouble; that there is disharmony between the executive and the assembly; there is disharmony between the police and the legislators and everything put together cannot be controlled anymore. But that is not the situation here.

The situation here is that we, as government, invited the police and the soldiers to take over the activities of the militants. Fighting the militants is not a fight against the rest members of the Rivers State community. There is no fight against the Rivers State community, what we have is that the militants and cultists are inside the Rivers State community, and therefore, any attack on the militants will definitely have the ripple effect on the society as a whole.

There’s a curfew going on now in the state, how long will it last?

The curfew was imposed by us for seven days, and on Wednesday, the executive members of Rivers State government extended it by another one week. The reason is that, it will enable the security operatives to go on and be more effective in their actions or functions. I can tell you that because of the curfew many of the militants who are still hiding here and there are not able to move and so the security operatives are just picking them up wherever they are. If there was no curfew, they can move from one corner of Port Harcourt to the other without being noticed. They are now boxed into a corner and we’re picking them. There are many other advantages of the curfew, many.

But, many militants are in the creeks?

Yes, they are in the creeks and we shall get there.

The argument by the Rivers State elders is that ...

No, they are not Rivers State elders. They represented themselves.

Alright, but what they are saying is that only a neutral administration can bring about a lasting peace, which by implication means you too, you are part of the problem?

I don’t understand why I will be a part of my own problem. In the first instance, let me tell you that the people who spoke in Lagos, Graham-Douglas, Edwin Clark and others, are not elders and representatives of Rivers State people. Edwin Clark is from Delta State. What is his business in Rivers State? He has no affairs, no relationship with Rivers people. Rivers State is 80 percent upland.

But Douglas is from Rivers?

Yes, Douglas is from here. He is a political opponent of PDP. He thinks he could get what he didn’t get from the ballot box through military intervention. And that’s all.You could see reactions from his own local government. You could see reactions from members of the state assembly. You also heard from our National Assembly members; the Senators, and members of House of Representatives, how they attacked him.

Are you also at peace with traditional rulers?

Yes. We called a stakeholders meeting. The chairman of the Council of Traditional Rulers, His Majesty, King Edward Asimini William Dappa Pepple III (CON, JP), Perekule XI, Amanyanabo of Grand Bonny Kingdom, spoke in anger against those calling for emergency rule. The Oba of Ogbaland also stood up and spoke against it. Professor T.J.T. Princewill, Amanyanabo of Kalabari where Graham Douglas comes from, spoke vehemently against it. Who else can say something? The elders have spoken, the legislators have spoken, the executive has spoken and the people of Rivers State have spoken.

Let’s talk about waterfront, there appears to be a slow development in this area. In fact the militants have taken over?

The issue of the waterfront. We know that the waterfront is like a hideout for the militants.Almost all of them live along the waterfronts. Waterfronts are supposed to be tourist centres. They are supposed to be developed with most beautiful houses, but what we have there are ramshackle buildings which are inhabited by militants and cultists. Rivers State government has decided to give notice to the occupants of these buildings along waterfronts.

We’ve given them up to the end of December, so they could provide for themselves accommodation elsewhere. They hide the criminals, militants and cultists within the waterfront area, Rivers State government will pull down all these structures and build houses befitting of waterfronts anywhere in the world. We’ll do it in partnership arrangement with banks or private investors. We also want to create new satellite towns in partnership with private investors.

What about your SHIER contract with the people?

Yes. The SHIER contract is a five-point agenda which the present administration is going to execute for the benefit of the entire people of Rivers State. SHIER is about social contract, human development contract, infrastructural development contract, economic empowerment contract and rural development contract. You will see that the agenda represents different segments of human development and that of the society.

We have started implementing SHIER contract right from the ‘S’. Our social contract includes basically the internal security and our promise to the people of Rivers State is to make sure, as much as we can, to reduce cultism. We reduce militancy.

We reduce cases of banditry. We reduce community crisis. And what we are doing now, we have started implementing our five-point agenda and our contract with the people of Rivers State. We had anticipated what we are doing now even before we were sworn-in.

As part of our social contract with the people, when we said the entire security of Rivers State for the people and those who are doing business in the state is our priority and it shouldn’t surprise you that we are doing what we are doing because we anticipated it. We know that crises are here and there in different villages; chieftaincy matters, land matters and it is our responsibility to look into all these crises and tackle them promptly.

Now, on human development, you will also realise that we have called for scholarship awards. We notice that before now many of our indigenes were unable to compete in the oil industry. And Rivers State is the base of oil and gas in Nigeria.

It is a fact that Rivers State produces 90 percent of the gas exported by the Federal Government. We are the highest producer of oil in the whole of Nigeria and yet our people are not employed in these companies and the thing they tell you is that you are not qualified. It’s a challenge.

Just yesterday (Wednesday), we awarded scholarship to five people who are going to Scotland for their master’s degrees. We have called for forms and applications of those to do doctorate degrees. By the time we finish, we intend to at least award a minimum of 100 scholarships per year. By the time this administration finishes in four years, we’ll be able to export human resources to other parts of this country and indeed to the outside world. That is our target.

How much is paid for school fees for master’s degree - £50,000 to £70,000 - you calculate this, less than 10 million Naira and if you send 10 people, that’s hundred million Naira. N100 million in a year is a little money for a state like Rivers, very little. I’m not bragging, it’s little or no money to us. Yet, you’ve given his family, a lifeline. If he works in a company, he’s going to benefit that company. Again, you’re helping in the economic development of the state and the country at large.

It has a ripple effect. The benefit expands and expands.On our health programme, we’re going to renovate all the staff quarters for our doctors. We realise that many doctors are not on duty because the staff quarters are bad. We are going to renovate all these quarters and hospitals in the rural areas, so human lives will continue to be saved by these doctors.

On infrastructural development, we have made it as a point of duty that before the end of four years, we must do a ring road, round Port Harcourt. The consultants are already on ground. The ring road will pass from the airport through the College of Education back to Marine Bridge and back again to the airport. It will just circle Port Harcourt. A lot of benefit will come out of that. Many roads will link up with this ring road. It’s triple lane each side; that makes it six lanes altogether. This will drastically reduce the vehicular logjam often experienced in Port Harcourt. It will definitely decongest the city.

And what about the flooding?

We have awarded contract for drainage in Port Harcourt. Before we came in, the former governor, Dr. Peter Odili, had gotten a consultant who did the satellite imagery of Port Harcourt to get where drainage should pass.

The drainage we have now were those constructed before the civil war, by the then Eastern Nigeria government. And the population of Port Harcourt has so overgrown that those drainage are no longer of any benefit. I can assure you that within the next one year, new drainage will be in place. In doing this, and because of the complexity of the building system in Port Harcourt, we have to pull down some people’s houses, to make way for drainage. Some people built on drains and I hope this won’t make them to call for emergency rule when caterpillars roll in. Of course, we’ll pay compensations.

Let me take this opportunity to say that I am satisfied with what the Federal Government through the military operatives have done so far and I wish to especially thank Mr. President, the Chief of the Defence Staff, the Inspector-General of Police, Navy, Air-force and Army commandants. All of them put hands to together to bring peace to the state. I implore that they should do the same to other states in the South-South. What we are experiencing here is also in other states in the region. It is just that I decided to take the bull by the horn and do what I’m doing now.

No person should continue to cover up. One day, it must come up. Whether you like it or not, it is there, the bad boys are there. The issue of hostage taking is not just in Rivers State. What we are doing now is to prevent what would have happened in the next one year.