Dakuku Peterside: Wike spent N.5bn on hatchet jobs, hiring of praise singers

 
The Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr Dakuku Peterside, has accused Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State of squandering over N500 million on various “inconsequential issues” in the last one year.
Peterside dropped the revelation while entertaining questions from journalists on the sidelines of the ongoing International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.
According to him, “with fear gripping Governor Wike that he will lose the Rivers governorship election in 2019,” the governor has embarked on a blitz of campaigns aimed at blackmailing the Presidency, Police, Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Army, and leadership of All Progressives Congress (APC) at local and national levels among others.
“In the last one year, Wike has been funding open and underground insurrection aimed at portraying the Presidency in a bad light, just as he has devoted enormous resources of the state to blackmail the Inspector General of Police, Rivers Police Commissioner, Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) Commander, Akin Fakorede, among others.
“With some INEC officials in Rivers State currently facing allegations of being bribed to influence the outcome of 2015 general elections, the governor has suddenly developed high fever, using all manner of platforms to denigrate the electoral body and trying to make people believe he was not a beneficiary of the election heist,” he stated.
The NIMASA boss said he had been reliably informed by sources within Government House, Port Harcourt that no less than N500 million had been spent so far on the hatchet jobs against the aforementioned people, with another round of campaign being mobilised in the next couple of weeks.   
He further disclosed that the governor has recruited people specifically for the purpose of generating propaganda against President Muhammadu Buhari, Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, Senator Andrew Uchendu, APC chairman in Rivers State, Ojukaye Flag Amachree and himself, adding that one of the governor’s aides has been pencilled to lead the team.
“Here is a governor who withdrew Rivers students from foreign schools for alleged lack of money, a governor that has not paid many workers for close to three years, owing pensioners and has no known vision but he is ready to spend such huge amount of money on blackmail and propaganda.
“The 13,000 teachers employed by former Governor Amaechi are still being owed three months after their biometric exercise for the arrears was suspended without any reason and have since been praying to God to answer their prayers.
 
“Some of the workers and pensioners met me recently and I felt for them. Here are Rivers people who have worked and devoted their time to better the lots of the citizenry but cannot get paid because of the inhuman attitude of the governor. The money he has spent on his personal agenda is enough to pay these people and make their families survive.
 
“My source in Government House also revealed that huge sums of money are being given to praise singers and hired crowds who are daily organizing one solidarity rally after the other as a way of getting their share of Wike’s largesse. This surely won’t last forever, as Rivers people are already tired of the governor and his antics,” he stressed.
Peterside enjoined Rivers people and particularly those owed salaries to remain resolute and be prayerful in their resolve to vote out Wike, adding that “a government that cares for all segments of the state will be enthroned in 2019.”