We are turning Yenagoainto Dubai of Africa -GovDickson

Bayelsa State governor, Honourable Henry Seriake Dickson, recently
hosted select newsmen to an interview where he enumerated the
developmental strides in the state. He also spoke on other issues.
Taiwo Adisa brings the excerpts:
IN recent times, you have been quoted as saying that your government
is spending so much on road construction. Is it the focalpoint of your
administration?
There is construction everywhere because that is what I promised the
people of the state and that is what they deserve. We are preparing
our state for industrialisation. We are preparing our state to be a
foremost tourism and investment haven. We are preparing our state to
join the league of developed states. I am in a hurry to see
development. When I started, a lot of people said "where is he going
to get the money to do all these; his dreams are too big; too big for
this state; too big for four years; even too big for eight years.''
But theydidn't know what I know about myself, which is that I raise
the bar all the time. I try my best in all the responsibilities that I
have been privileged to handle. I try to make a success, however
modest it is, and this will be no exception. I am in a hurry to see
this place become the Dubai of Africa, and this is no joke. Very soon,
you will see tourism unfold; very soon you will see people rushing
into Bayelsa as they already doing now. You have seen improvement in
security.
You asked why Julius Berger and all these companies. It's not just
Berger. All major construction companies in Nigeria have a presence
here. A lot more are even coming, because the whole state is about
construction.I have also succeeded within this short period to create
an enabling, secure environment. The honourable Commissioner for
Works, who is a committed, selfless young man, understands the vision
and he is effectively supervising and leading the charge. Let me add
this. Bayelsa was the least developed part of old Rivers State. So,
when we came here, we just saw ourselves living in an abandoned
forest, an abandoned swamp with all its challenges, the difficulty of
our terrains and then the challenges of under-development of the
people themselves.
That brought a lot of negative consequences - rise in militancy, high
level of illiteracy and low level of unemployment and employability
and all that. So, we are tackling all these. But the key to it is to
open up the state and that answers the question "why road, road,
road?'' We've got to open up the state because a place that is
inaccessible is a forgotten place. Nigeria forgot this part of the
country. This underdevelopment predated Nigeria's independence and
that was why our leaders and chiefs at the time before Nigeria's
independence was agreed upon requested for a conference and the
colonial masters listened and summoned the Willink Commission. That
was how the Willink Commission came into being. It came into being to
study the complaints of the minorities of the Niger Delta, who felt
that their terrainwas very difficult and the majority groups in an
independent Nigeria would not take care of them, develop them or even
understand their challenges and the British government saw reasons and
convened the Willink Commission. That was how they now granted special
status to these areas. That wasthe beginning of the developments
Basins - Niger Delta Development Basins and all of that.
So, this is a very special area. The terrain is so difficult. What I
spend on one kilometre of road here, as you have seen, you can use it
to construct 20 kilometres in other places. So, imagine me doing what
I am doing ona dry land, you would have seen that even the 14 months
that I have been here would have been something else. But here you've
got to first excavate up to eight feet, in some places even more, and
here that's why I'm selecting first class construction companies.
Whatever I put in place here, I will like it to stand the test of
time.
What are you doing about human capital development?
The challenge of human capacity building, in fact, is the most
importantthat I need to confront. Part of the consequences of
under-developmentof this area is that the Human Development Index is
very low. No good schools; I know that the standard of education,
generally, has fallen in this country. But here, it is something else.
Everywhere, the standard is always higher in urban areas than it is in
the rural areas. So, for a state that is completely rural, a state
that is inaccessible, you can imagine what is going on. I noticed that
to prepare for tomorrow, you've got to invest in the human mind today
and that is why we areinvesting so much in education. You must have
been told about our declaration of free education for primary and
secondary schools. A newspaper comment, I think in This Day, last
week, said beyond my declaration of emergency (on Education), not much
appears to have been done. I know that whoever wrote that didn't have
the facts. In one year, we have built 400 schools; 400 teachers'
quarters. I'm not aware of any other government building teachers'
quarters.
At the secondary school level, we are constructing modern secondary
schools with modern facilities. The key is to have boarding
re-introduced. Most of us passed through boarding schools and they
taught us a lot of things, not just academics. So, the key for us in
this state is once this boarding schools that we are constructing are
finished--- and we hope to finish a number of them by
September---secondary education in this state, generally, will be
boarding and the state will take responsibility for their (the
students') feeding and maintenance. In other words, once a child gets
into secondary school, the boarding school, the parents will pay
little or nothing. So, the state has to intervene in a revolutionary
manner on that. We are building eight model schools - one in each
local government headquarters which will have a capacity for 1,200
students. But now, we are decentralising it also. Every state has
constituencies, so we also have constituency boarding secondary
schools. We are building 26constituency secondary schools.
We have 24 constituencies but there are some areas which are highly
populated and we have challenges of illiteracy, so I'm putting more
there, Southern Ijaw precisely. In all the 26 of them, construction is
going on and most of them are at roofing stage. Also, in the area of
scholarship awards, in one year, we have given over a 100 PhD
scholarships within this country and outside; over 250 to 300 Masters
degree scholarships; over400 undergraduate scholarships; evenselected
250 pupils from primary schools. As we speak, they are in top boarding
schools in this country - Nigerian-Turkish, Bell, Loyola, all
over.They are indigent students who are bright.
The programme was started by the President (Goodluck Jonathan) while
he was governor, but my predecessor (Timipre Silva) stopped it. So,
for some five years, the programme was cut off. The ones that the
president started with about 100 of them, I think, they passed out
last year. So, we are now starting the programme again and a number of
them have been sent out on scholarships. We gotsupport from the
Amnesty Office because they do a lot of training.
In this state since I became governor, no student has paid for for
WASCE, NECO or UTME. It's free. You just need to indicate that you are
set to take WASCE, NECO or UTME and the government pays. We supply
text books, notebooks, even writing pens, school bags and uniforms. I
just directed the Finance Commissioner torelease N5 million to every
local government area and N10 million to the two largest councils -
Yenagoa and Southern Ijaw - for the chairman and the committees to now
buy moreschool uniforms for them. Why we aredoing this is because in
vain do we build roads and bridges if we do not develop human beings.
What is your reaction to the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) crisis?
Quite frankly, there is no governor who would say he is not touched or
he is not sad by the development in the NGF. We are as outraged and
saddened as any other Nigerian. It could have been handled better. I
think that governors are responsible people, not irresponsible people
as the outcome may have suggested.
We are putting our heads together, consulting across divides and very
soon, with the feelers that I have, the misunderstanding will be
resolved and NGF will be back. But the NGF that will be back, I'm
sure, is an NGF that would have learnt its lessons; an NGF that would
have learnt to stick to the founding principles of that organisation,
which is a peer review mechanism, not a trade union, not a platform
for personal political aggrandisement, not a platform for playing
partisan politics. These are the guiding principles of the NGF. We are
there actually to compare notes and also to be a platform for
collaboration. It is a bipartisan or multi-partisan organisation that
enables us to focus on what is the best, how we can deepen democracy
and collaborate with the Federal Government on the challenges of
development, national security and so on.
Well, the problem didn't start now. PDP governors, who became chairman
of the forum over the years, turned it to be a campaign platform - a
platform for occupying national political space, a platform, when
necessary, for promoting personal ambition, a platform also
forpromoting the ambitions of others. It didn't start now, it didn't
start with Governor Rotimi Amaechi: even before him, that was the
tradition. So, there was the urge of the Chairman ofNGF to want to
become the President or Vice-President. Once an organisation of
equals, a voluntary organisation of equals, starts on that note,
things could fall apart and the centre may not be strong enough to
hold. I think that was what happened basically.
What about this insinuation that some governors are pushing for a
neutral candidate that will just emerge as the NGF chairman?
I'm not aware of that. The nature of the resolution, I don't know.
What I just know is that we are working together to ensure that we do
things right. It's just a body of equals, 36 governors. Quite frankly,
for some of us, even if you dash me chairman of NGF, I won't take
because its additional wahala and additional stress.
It is basically additional responsibility. The responsibilities we
have in our states are enough challenges. Quite frankly, that is why
Ithink the whole thing was blown out of proportion because some people
wanted to use it to achieve other ends, other ulterior motives, even
when there was no need for it. In the United States, people don't even
know who the chairman of the American Governor's Forum is, because
it's not important. The chairman is just there to preside over the
meetings of equals. It doesn't make him a super governor. But you know
everything Nigerian, people want to distort and then make something
out of nothing. There is nobody who has become president
orvice-president through the NGF. You don't need NGF to discuss with
your party. If you want to become anything, you set up your campaign
platform and you battle for the ticket of your party and you talk to
Nigerians. You don't need an NGF. But I think there is this
unfortunate misconception of NGF as a platform that could be used for
the national political space. I think heavy investment was also made
to project it that way. For me, it's nothing I am even prepared to
accept right now because the challenges of governing your state is
serious enough. As governors, the mandate we have is togovern our
states.
Can you shed light on the Safe City and Safe State project?
We want to provide fool-proof security as much as it is humanly
possible and we are calling in technology because that is the trend
all over the world. You saw what happened in Boston, USA. You can't
prevent all crimes. The important thing is that the one you cannot
prevent, you should be able to apprehend and punish the offenders as
quickly as possible. I want our law enforcement agencies to have that
kind of capacity in Yenogoa. This is what we should have in all our
cities, really. But over the years, just as we have abandoned
investment in education and then we allowed the generation to grow up
without values, without morals, without knowledge all over the country
- and it's hunting us now. We didn't invest in security. So, we are
reversing that trend. We want people to troop to Yenagoa, feel safe
here, do business and live here. I hope that by the time the new
Yenagoa City project is launched about November or December, the new
Yenagoa City will be like Dubai.
When you come to that new Yenagoa City, you won't believe you are in
Nigeria. Already, we have started that process - the polo club has
started; the five-star hotel. As a matter of fact, it's a six-star
hotel which will be completed by September or October. We are even
building a chapel there for those who want to marry to come and do
their honeymoon in Yenagoa, in a safe city, in a safe state. There
willbe bars, there will be casinos and everything you can find
everywhere in the world. It will be one-stop leisure relaxation
centre. With several plots of land that will be available, we will
tell other Nigerians and other people to come and invest and live
here. There will be shopping malls, so Yenagoa is being programmed for
prosperity, for security and for development.
How much progress have you been able to make in the area of agriculture?
Yes, agriculture is one major area we are looking at. We are actually
doing alot. But last year, our agricultural investments were stalled
because of the flood. This year, we've done, for example, 40 hectares
of seed multiplication because of the big farmthat we want to do. But
then, the flood projection is a source of concern. My commissioner has
advised that we should put all the contracts we have awarded in that
area on hold until after the flood because if we do anything now, the
flood can wipe it out. All the things we did last year, flood
destroyed everything - the rice, all the cassava investments. Not just
the ones ownedby the public, it also affected the private ones,
including my own fishfarm. I was very sad when he brought the advice,
but I knew that what he was saying was the right thing. There is no
point going to create massive areas, plant seedlings, only for the
flood to wipe everything. Agriculture is one major area we are looking
at, as a matter of fact, to diversify our economy. This has made us to
look into two areas - tourism and agriculture. We don't want to be
number 1 in oil and gas alone. We want to be number one in rice
production, in fishery and other areas we have comparative advantage.
Right now, we have sent 500 youths for specialised training in
agriculture in Cotonou. The whole idea is for them to be trained and
come back and run the farms we want to establish but, like I said, the
flood issue is troubling and this is because the whole state is below
sea level. All major rivers run through this state to the Atlantic
Ocean.
What is your government going todo about the 500-bed hospital thatis
enmeshed in controversy?
We are not abandoning that project . Idon't know of controversies but
issues on the hospital are not insurmountable. They are not things
that cannot be resolved; they are not serious issues. If you went
there, you would have seen the diagnostic centre that is coming up
there.
The whole idea is that when that centre is finished, then we will
begin to fix the development of that hospital. The hospital was
conceived without due regard to available manpower that will run it
and so many other fundamental issues involved. So, we are working with
theprivate sector. That is not a hospital that can be run by any state
government. We are looking for people - major firms, major medical
firms. A lot of them have shown interest because of improved image of
the state. They have come from India, from South Africa, Dubai and
England to come and look at it. We arelooking at their proposals. We
want tooutsource that place for them to use and with the diagnostic
centre we arebuilding, to complement it. That placewill become a
centre for medical excellence. So, it is not abandoned at all. Very
soon, you will see major developments but I don't want to put further
government resources there. Iwant the private sector to come in and
drive that project and the private sector is responding positively. We
will work with them to bring it to completion.
What informed the drug mart project that the state recently decided to
partner r Minister of Information and also former Director General of
NAFDAC, Prof. Dora Akunyili ?
In health sector we are doing so much. If you going to every local
government, we are building standard hospitals. Some days ago, former
Minister of Information and former Director General of NAFDAC, Prof.
Dora Akunyili was here to collaborate with us to build the first ever
pharmaceutical storage facilities that will be handed over to drug
manufacturing firms for them to store their original drugs. We want to
phase out this syndrome of fake drugsin this state and also support
that process in this country. This is to ensure that any drug here is
original because all the manufacturers will have their own storage
facility and man it. Then all retail traders will nowbuy from them.
They won't sell retailsin this market, they will sell wholesale. Only
drugs from the market will only be allowed in our medical facilities.
That place will also have a laboratory so that from time totime we
will be testing fake drugs, substandard and expired drugs. It is a
major facility, which when completed by the end of this year,
hopefully, will go a long way to address this issue, not just in
Bayelsa but at least in the South-South. I talked about the modern
diagnostic centre. When we finish it, a lot of Nigeria will not need
to travel out of the country for diagnosis. Our doctors in this
country are quite good but they first need to find out what is wrong
before they can treat effectively. We want to put up all the
facilities there so that people will not need to travel to Indiaor the
US and we are backing it up with health insurance, which I will soon
sign into law. Once you subscribe to it, you will not need to pay
anything when you are sick. So you will do your diagnosis at the
diagnostic centre and the doctors willtreat you and will be paid for
by the insurance fund. We will start with those in the public service
and even those outside the public service can contribute can be part
of it.