APC can’t stop PDP –Dickson

Governor Henry Seriake Dickson has restated un­equivocally that President Goodluck Jonathan will defeat the presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari, in the March 28 election.

Dickson, who was answering questions from journalists, said drawing from experience as a member of the opposition, APC was a contraption that was hurried­ly put together and cannot wrest power from the PDP.

According to him, Buhari is no match for President Jonathan in terms of acceptability and experi­ence.

He dismissed the propaganda of the APC leadership, insisting that Nigerians had seen through their deceit and would vote in line with the reality, which is the perfor­mance of the Jonathan administra­tion.

Dickson disclosed that his admin­istration shifted the celebration of its third year in office to honour the eight prominent Bayelsa women that died in a ghastly motor ac­cident along the East/ West Road and urged people not to politicise the death of the women. He spoke on various issues.

Excerpts:

What happened to plans to mark the third anniversary of your Resto­ration Administration?

We intended to mark our third year anniversary as a government and also tell our story in a more coherent and compre­hensive way. Steps had been taken in that direction before the very sad incident of the passing on of our fellow citizens on St. Valentine’s Day. You will recall that INEC initially fixed our own anniversary date as date for presidential election. I thought that the elections would come and go. But as you all know, elections were shifted and that left us with just about a week or so. And while we were still making efforts to mark it, on that Valentine’s Day, we lost citizens of our state; eight of our women who had made some contributions to our state and that made it necessary for us to shift it. A formal programme will be an­nounced soon and we will mark it in some form because we have a lot to celebrate.

Why were the victims buried at the Azikoro Cemetery as against being honoured at the Heroes Me­morial Park, as some suggested? What informed the decision of government on that?

First of all, that is an unnecessary politicisation of a sad event which, as the President said, should teach all of us a lesson. We decided as a government to organise and give them that recognition and honour of a state funeral. I know what preparations went in right from the time we visited the site. My Commissioner for Health and his team took charge and the Special Adviser on Security took charge of the security aspect of the site. The deputy governor was in charge of the process all through; he interacted with the families on my behalf and I also did interact with them. I know what we did as a government; that was sufficient honour. And to cap it all, we organised a state funeral. We couldn’t have done anything better than that. The families are quite sat­isfied and appreciative. Some have even written to us appreciating what we did.

And as I remarked in my tribute to them, whatever happens to one happens to all. We are one Ijaw family; that is why people need to be more careful in the type of politics they play and the divisions they engender; some of them needless but at all times, it is our duty to demonstrate that we are all members of one family. Now on the Heroes Memorial Park, it was a concept of the Restoration Government and up till date, only two people have been interred there. General Owoye Azazi of blessed memory, our first four-star general who commanded the Nigerian Army; commanded his corps; head of the Director of the Military Intelligence, later became Chief of Army Staff and later became the nation’s number one soldier as Chief of Defence Staff. And upon retirement, he was appointed the nation’s Security Adviser.

We honoured him by interring his remains there. The idea we have about the Heroes Memorial Park is that it is not just another cemetery. You are aware that be­cause of our commitment to the protection and propagation of the Ijaw national inter­est and the protection of our culture and language, we brought back the remains of our late leader, Major Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro, after he had been buried in some grave of some description in Ikoyi Cem­etery for close to over 40 years. It was this government that saw the need to bring back his remains. Today, Boro lies in the Heroes Memorial Park. So, the idea of the park is not just another cemetery; that is a place about which we have already taken a decision to forward a bill to the House of Assembly for the setting up of a committee of board that will examine the criteria and approve those who will be interred there.

We have also taken a decision that in a situation where we cannot bury or rebury the bones of our heroes, we will build mausoleums in their honour. The Heroes Memorial Park is a place of his­tory and in the next couple of years when we are through with it, and you will see a depiction of the history of our people, the roles they played, how their lives and services and sacrifices in some cases impacted on our society and on our his­tory as a people. As a government, we have already decided that there would be a mausoleum in honour of Ernest Ikoli. He was an emerging political leader of Nigeria, all the way in Lagos. But because of where he came from not much is said about Ernest Ikoli. We want to tell it in our own way and put it on the soil of Bayelsa State so that Bayelsans of all generations will read about his life. And in addition to the mausoleums that we are going to build, books, which I have com­missioned, under the Ijaw History Project would be written about all of them. The one about Gen. Azazi is ready and the one on Boro is almost ready. It would be a tourist’s park.

By the time our children visit the park, they will read about the contributions of our leaders and the struggles of our people. That is the concept and not just another cemetery. We have also decided that to build mausoleums for people like the clergy man, Rev. Ogriki Ockiya who translated the Bible into Nembe, Rear Admiral Nelson Bossman Soroh for being the first Ijaw man who commanded an arm of our nation’s military. So, if you are an Ijaw man or a Bayelsan and you rise to head any of our nation’s military services, we will honour you. If you are an Ijaw man and you rise up to be the President as we currently have one, that is a feat candi­date or someone whose life has impacted on the lives of our people positively like Rex Jim Lawson and so on. In any case, not many people know that we have a befitting cemetery in Bayelsa; and there are two sections in the cemetery. You have the ordinary and VIP section. Our mothers and sisters were interred at the VIP wing of the cemetery.

You are in the last lap of your first tenure as Governor of Bayelsa State. During your inauguration, you made several promises and you have been able to fulfill a bulk of them especially in education, infrastructural development and agriculture. From all indications, you have done or are doing every­thing you planned to do which were parts of your blueprint. What are your expectations and what are you promising Bayelsans in the remain­ing part of your tenure?

It is work in progress and I want to appreciate you for acknowledging that so much work has been done and much is still being done. That was why we hit the ground running. A lot of sleepless nights went into all the projects people are seeing and the formulation of most of the policies that have made a difference in our state. My team and I have been working round the clock and we wanted before our third year elapses to have concluded most of our major projects, for example, the dualization of the Isaac Boro road. The period stated in the contract is about 36 months. A number of these projects have a life span of their own. Now, we are dealing with funding shortfall that is very severe. That is regrettable but the situation is not peculiar to Bayelsa State. Some states cannot even fulfill their basic ob­ligations. We are managing and we want people to understand that as a result of our prudence and emphasis on diligence and the sacrifices that people are also mak­ing, we are able to push through most of these projects. Our greatest challenge now is to see through the completion of most of these laudable big ticket projects that are going on. If you are able to have the resources to complete them, I think that the next phase of our challenge having achieved security, is the challenge of cre­ating and engaging our people and making them to be more productive as well as get­ting our society back into production.

The challenge that is confronting us is that of transforming our state from a con­suming state to an independent economy. We are going to launch very soon, our own idea of empowerment through the micro finance system. We are setting up our own micro finance bank with branches in every local government area. It is our expectation that in the next eight weeks, we will formally launch the micro finance bank, which we call the Izon-Ibe Bank. The headquarters is in Yenagoa at Azikoro area.

For us, governance is not about pro­paganda; governance is about identify­ing real issues; governance is not about blackmail but taking tough decisions and making sacrifices for the overall benefits of the people. We already have Central Bank of Nigeria approval- in- principle to start the bank, which will employ many of our qualified manpower. And then working with our partners, that bank will begin to do micro financing at a basic level to all our women in the communities. So, women, get ready your time for empower­ment has come. People who have business ideas get ready in your communities. We want proper identification because we are a government that believes in doing things properly.

It is not enough to do the right thing but you must also do the right thing in the right way. We are building institutions as we are doing in every sector. And this I believe is going to be one of the lasting legacies of our government. As long as the bulk of people are dependent on govern­ment, and when government revenue is going down, they will not understand. They see the government as a Father Christmas. So that puts a lot of pressure on the social fabric of our state. Any society where its leadership from those who have served in every government from the creation of the state till today, depends on government cannot be stable.

That is one of the main reasons for polit­ical instability and for unnecessary rivalry and attempt to breed divisions here and there because of the economic pressures. There is nothing you can do like building roads to their communities; you are taking power to the communities. Amassoma has electricity now. Very soon, we will switch on the light that will send power from the national grid straight to Ofoni communi­ties from Ogbia up to Nembe as well as Southern Ijaw with the Angiama work going on, will have light. Communities in Famgbe and around Yenagoa that never had light all the way to Agbere now have electricity. If you send all their children to school on scholarship and they see all the roads and bridges being built, they are not satisfied. Our society has changed from the days when Chief Melford Okilo was governor in Rivers State and from when the first civilian government started. The economy affects people’s living standards while expectations are rising. And we have an ever-increasing army of expect­ant citizens who have no industries to run to. In this whole state, there is not one industry that employs anybody. No one factory that is available to give anybody an IPO or LPO. So we have to deal with the economy. Going forward, the economy is going to be our focus. We have done roads with major infrastructure work going on, we are doing everything we can to educate our people to service a vibrant economy, security, health care investment everywhere; international airport is coming on stream working with the Federal Government and so many sec­tors are being addressed.

How do you see the chances of the Peoples Democratic Party with specific regards to the forthcoming presidential and general elections?

We in the PDP are very confident that our party will emerge victorious at the presidential level. Our candidate, who is the sitting president, will be re-elected. We are confident because in an election, we talk of three factors: the platform, the candidate and the programmes. These are the three main things. You can’t compare our party that is resilient and battle-tested for sixteen years with a contraption that was hurriedly put together. It is a good job they have done. You know, I was in the opposition myself so I know how difficult it is to midwife the kind of things they have gone through. We commend them because it is good for our democra­cy. But then, it does not have the strength of a tested war horse. And so, we are very confident on that score.

They have not been tested on a national platform yet. We have no concerns. We are strong all over the country. And Nigerians have seen a lot of things that propaganda can distort. They have seen the reality. Our candidate cannot be com­pared to the opposition candidate in terms of virility, background and solidity of experience. The other candidate was there for about 18 months or so and in a differ­ent set-up. Besides, our programmes are better. So we are confident that Nigerians will see the need to give the president a four year extension and an opportunity to renew his mandate to enable him deepen the transformation agenda.

Let me use this opportunity to call on Bayelsans, even though we are not campaigning here, to go and collect their permanent voter cards, so that you can vote for the President and all our candi­dates. In Bayelsa, I’m not aware of any threat from any other party. It is going to be PDP all the way because our candi­dates are better.

There are a few renegades here and there, but even then, the party leaders from their areas are trying to talk to them to see reason to be within the umbrella. Those who are being deceived by some characters in Abuja, saying they are PDP in Abuja and Yenagoa, but when it comes to their constituencies (for the state House of Assembly), they are APGA and Labour Party, don’t be deceived because it will not work.

And very soon, you will realise it. The people will vote for the President’s party, which has a performing state govern­ment. A number of these characters that are pushing people, when they were in charge, you know the kind of things they did. If it were in some societies, people will not be identifying with them. So, people should have a rethink and continue to be under the umbrella because that is the party that will win.

Why are you yet to commission the Ebeni bridge and other proj­ects. Is it that you want to remain low profile?

Quite frankly, I do not believe that for every little project the government does, there has to be a lavish commissioning. I was elected specifically for this purpose, to upgrade and modernize the infrastruc­ture and I set all out in my inaugural speech. There is nothing I have done that is outside my inaugural speech, so I came prepared and my team is competent, self­less, dedicated and committed.

So, we cannot have it better than the way we have it now. And we came prepared with a comprehensive vision to serve and turn around our state. In my In­augural speech, I said that after me by the grace of God, Bayelsa State and the Ijaw nation will not be the same again. Now, I do not believe that I need to organize lavish commissioning that will cost a lot of money.

Remember, I am not very disposed to high recurrent expenditure that forms the bulk of government expenditure. We have finished a lot of projects and we are using them without even commissioning them. But maybe to answer to some of this concern that the public has, the big ticket items I will like our President to come and do the commissioning. For example, the Ebeni Bridge you talked about, that is a project that is very dear to the President himself. I was in his cabinet as Attorney general and I saw the commitment he had on that particular project. I know the way he was putting pressure on my colleague, the then commissioner for works. I was writing the agreement as the Attorney General, so I know.

And when he left, I also left for Abuja as you know. When we came back, I discovered that that critical road project was abandoned. It was almost in the same state it was when we left and it is connect­ing the central senatorial district with the west and if you do that connection, then we can go to Delta State and do a lot of inter connectivity and the economy will turn around. Now, you can drive almost to Oporoma, all the communities from here to Oporoma, their economies have improved, land prices have gone up.

From here to Nembe, the economy has improved, you see more small scale traders, and people are selling more things down the road around the Oporoma area. This is the way government impacts and creates wealth. We do not just distribute cash. As you do some of these big things, land prices appreciate, so their collective wealth goes up and then they can easily do business and so on. We are doing all of that and there is “Operation light up Bayelsa “ also by which we will formally commission all these electricity power projects.

What is government doing to recover the N25 billion that was illegally deducted from the state’s accounts?

First of all, I want to appreciate the Assembly for the very diligent work that they did particularly the committee chaired by the Honorable Tonye Emman­uel Isenah and for raising that issue. These were deductions that the Assembly felt that were wrongly charged from different government accounts before we came in.