Rivers: What Odili Did Not Tell Amaechi

When this piece was first published in November 2008, no serious interpretation was given to the issues raised. But today, five years later, this piece has been fully confirmed as will be shown in Part two of the article.

From the manner the two last governors including the interim one emerged in Rivers state, it could now rightly be said that it is a state that gets its governors strictly by divine intervention.

Peter Odili became governor of Rivers state by divine intervention after the forces of light in the churches defeated the forces of the “anti-Christ” that originally won a landslide victory in the first run of the 1999 governorship election.

Subsequently, both Omehia and Amaechi also came by divine transportation though through very different vehicles.

Truly, when Odili became governor in 1999, he came with the spirit and genuine zeal to really serve and deliver the dividends of democracy to the ordinary people of Rivers state and he was bent on achieving that.

It is on record that he was the only governor in the entire country who developed a comprehensive work programme as policy document. And the implementation of projects and programmes as set out in the master plan was carried out with utmost sincerity and frugality.

Odili’s independent power project was innovative and the first in the entire country. At the onset, the project was pursued on strict budget discipline and “utmost frugality,” though much later, it became the worst drain pipe and arena of fraud. But that’s not the issue here.

His metro rail transport service was the grassroots’ delight because it was strictly targeted to help them.

In the housing sector, estates were built in all the local government headquarters in the state. Though most of the houses were cited in evil forests which made it easier for people closer to the spirit world (psycha) to occupy than normal human beings, the fact remains that at least he built and they exist till today.

Odili, early in the life of his administration preached and pursued the gospel of “utmost frugality” in the use of state funds. And because he had nothing to hide, every month, he gathered representatives from all the national, local and even foreign media. He was asked direct uncensored questions and the media interactions were transmitted live even beyond the state.

However all these changed when Odili started dancing the “na who be the mani-yiooo” regae tune towards the end of his first tenure.

He suddenly stopped dedicating Rivers state to God and metamorphosed into an “Ogbuagu (killer of lion) in the Knight of saint something”. And from the “utmost frugality” gospel, he switched over to “in tandem with the thinking of the administration.”

He co-opted the “anti- Christ” from the pit of hell into his work programme to execute his Total Root Out campaign (RTO).

The reckless devouring of state funds assumed a criminal dimension when the former governor became blindfolded by his inundated ambition to grab power at all cost at the centre. Rivers state stopped being his constituency and primary area of service.

Though the state’s annual budgets moved from few billions of naira to hundreds of billions, the Rivers people became more deprived in terms of service delivery. Infrastructures depreciated to laughable standard to the point school pupils sat on bare floor to receive lessons in roofless classrooms.

Matching both Odili and Amaechi’s early years in office, it seems there is a replay. And thus it has become imperative to berate Odili for not telling

Amaechi certain crucial facts that could stop the son from committing the same sins of the father.

As a governor, Odili virtually lived in churches and surrounded himself with men of god and men who want to be like god as the church was instrumental to his defeating the “anti-Christ”. Throughout his stay at the Brick House, these men of god with their anointing for signs and wonders did not see a single thing wrong with the way he ran the state until the day Amaechi came into office.

Odili should have told Amaechi that the same men of god who benefited heavily from his largess singing praises and powerful prayers throughout the eight years only turned around to call for his crucifixion right from Amaechi’s first day in office.

Publicly, even in the media especially the (web-based), some people have severally referred to Amaechi as an Igbo man merely because the Ikweres can be accepted to be pure Niger Delta when it suits some people while at other times, they become more Igbo than Niger Delta.

Odili did not tell Amaechi that part of his problem in the state was because of the part of the state he was born. Some sections did not see him as a pure blood riversman. Rather they saw him as a pure Igbo man who became “riversman merely by state creation.” This was part of the fight he faced.

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