NIGERIA: Chief Press Secretary to the Rivers State Governor, Mr. David Iyofor has described as completely false and misleading the comments made by the Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, on Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and Rivers monorail.
He said the Supervising Minister of Education distorted facts and lied when he spoke in a Monday morning Channels television interview.
Iyofor addressed the press after taking journalists on a facility tour of the Rivers State monorail project along Azikiwe road, Port Harcourt, on Monday.
He said contrary to Wike’s claim that nothing was happening at the Rivers monorail, work was going on even at the time he spoke to journalists at the project site. The site engineer also spoke to the journalists.
Iyofor said: “Gentlemen of the press, as you can see work is ongoing at the monorail project, so it’s funny when we hear the supervising minister for education, Nyesom Wike say that work is not going on. I mean, today is Monday, February 3, 2014 and this morning you all heard him on TV saying there is no work going on the monorail.
He was asked pointedly, he said, no, nothing is happening on the monorail project, he said no work is going on at the Rivers Monorail project but I’m glad you all are here today and you can see that work is going on in the monorail and as you heard the site engineer say, they even work day and night so that they could meet the target for completion and the monorail is already like 85 per cent completed according to him, so it’s even funny if a minister that is supposed to be an honourable minister of the Federal Republic (of Nigeria) could come on national TV to lie and attempt to deceive Nigerians.”
“It’s something that all can see, I mean anybody that drives through Azikiwe road could see that work is ongoing, work has been ongoing on this project and is ongoing on the project, and Wike can come on national TV and lie pointedly that nothing is happening at the Rivers monorail, so you can only imagine what else he has lied about, if he can lie on something that we all can see with our two eyes that work is actually going on, and a minister that is supposed to be an honourable person come on national TV to say nothing is happening at the Rivers Monorail.
“It’s unfortunate. I just feel really sad and I feel pity for him that he could come up to lie about a project where work is going on.
“This was the project he was part of, he was a member of the Rivers State Cabinet when this project started and he could come to criticize and attack that same project. It’s really unfortunate and really sad, so I urge Nigerians to completely disregard whatever he said. If he can lie about something we all can see, so we can imagine how many lies he told in that interview this morning on TV”.
Iyofor described as outrageous and a wicked lie the claims by Wike that the new schools that the Governor has built all over the State are only in Port Harcourt city.
Iyofor also refuted Wike’s claim that Governor Amaechi did not make him Minister in President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, recalling that Governor Amaechi pleaded with President Jonathan for Wike to be accepted as a ministerial nominee.
“The bottom line is that Governor Amaechi nominated him (Wike) to be a minister. Wike said his name was number 2 or number 3 or the ministerial list sent to the President by the governor. So what does he want? For the governor to put number one, Nyesom Wike, number two, Nyesom Wike, number three, Nyesom Wike, number four, Nyesom Wike? Like the governor said at the Ogbakor Ikwerre Convention that the president clearly refused, that he did not know Wike, the governor said at the Ogbakor Ikwerre convention and Sampson Agbaru was at that meeting with the president when the president said he did not know Nyesom Wike from Adam and he refused to make him a Minister but Governor Amaechi had to beg and beg and beg for Wike to be made a minister, so how else does a man make somebody a minister?”
He said it was sad that the Supervising Minister of Education lied about his former boss (Amaechi) and criticized the monorail project which was initiated during the time Wike was Chief of Staff in Government House, Port Harcourt.
He accused the former Chief of Staff of being ungrateful to Governor Amaechi whom he severally described as his benefactor.
Also speaking to journalists on the monorail project, the site engineer, Mr. Dele Mateola, who was at the project site at the time of the interview said, work was in progress and nearing completion.
He said the Azikiwe station of the monorail was 85 per cent completed, stressing that his men work day and night to meet the target date.
He said: “Actually, with the level we are going now, especially on Azikiwe station we have gone up to 85 per cent completion and we are expecting by maybe ending of February we should be rounding up especially for the external works. Maybe, by the time you come here in the next two weeks we will have put asphalt on the road and that is to show that we are working seriously.
“Look around, you see that there are a lot of workers working, a lot of noise around here, that is to show that we are moving very fast according to the programme of work. The only thing that can delay us, because most of these materials that we are using, they are state-of –the –art materials and they are not something that is readily available, they have to be imported and that is the only time lag that we may have. So before the end of February, if those materials come in we should be saying bye bye. We even work in the night also to make sure that we meet up”, Mateola said.
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