south-south governors

Despite the strident sirens and the comfier luxury jeep that has edged out the Peugeot as official car, public office holders are a pitiable lot.

In the South-South states of Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross Rivers idleness seems the weakest charge. But visible results are what people want to see, not the efforts.

Take road construction and rehabilitation for instance. If there was an election in Delta State after the first six months of the regime, Governor James Ibori would, after a light campaign win his native Oghara councils and still win elsewhere where the votes were less predictable as in Warri.

The zeal with which the administration pursued the rehabilitation of Warri township roads was such that residents of the city, long used to craters and pools of water applauded. Even so, Ibori's efforts came up against the heaviest rains in decades and the roads began to deteriorate again. But the governor says the job was remedial and he would have the best laugh over the rains when the second round of reconstruction gets underway.

While Gov. Lucky Igbinedion cannot complain of a difficult terrain, he is up against a sturdy foe too, flooding. Much of Benin City, the state capital, easily accepted huge levels of flood as the rains pounded. If any of the governors numerous projects is seen as a white elephant in the making by the people, it is the solution the government has chosen for the flooding problem, the dredging of the Ikpoba river. Estimated to cost N500 million, the project is designed to drain off much of the flood in the city but this is regularly pooh- poohed in Edo as wasteful. The next rains will prove between the governor and his critics who got it right.

Akwa Ibom seems the feel good state. A state where so much is happening and the people are thronging the churches to show their joy in giving back to their Maker. "Things have become better. There is hope... A common example is that collections (offering) have increased because people happily go to church to thank God and express their gratitude for the good things that have happened in their lives," Udeme Nana, director of press affairs to the governor said.

Nana has more to tell. According to him, his boss' administration has "restored hope and laid a solid foundation for a brighter future" by clearing a backlog of salaries and down payment of debts amounting to N500 million owed contractors. The governor has also begun the payment of bursary awards to students of the state in institutions of higher learning.

In the industrial sector, the administration credits itself with the reactivation of the plasto-crown industry which was closed for several years. The government says it is about reviving a dozen more firms. Also, 18 electricity projects and 20 water schemes are said to have been commissioned in various communities in the state. A N3 billion contract for the rehabilitation and construction of roads in the state has been awarded.

The state government has also set up a micro-credit scheme under the Poverty Alleviation Programme to boost small scale businesses. And like in Lagos State, the Akwa Ibom State Government is working hard to set up an independent power plant. Also in the offing is a state university of technology.

Pretty rosy. But for the state's acting chairman of the All Peoples Party, Dr. Bassey Etuknwa, the above could only be the product of spin doctors.

Etuknwa said the administration had nothing to parade before President Olusegun Obasanjo in the fashion of such visits when he was at Uyo. In fact, he laid the foundation stone of an envisaged 100 units of housing, a similar project that was carried out by Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State in his first 100 days in office.

A cross section of people who spoke to me in Uyo say that the governor is rather slow in his approach to the development of the state. They say most of the infrastructure in the state were laid during the regime of Air Commodore Idongesit Ikanga (retd.). Udeme Nana says his boss has been deliberate and not slow. "Obong Attah doesn't want to be frivolous by joining the multitude to say in a 100 days...I have done this...Idongesit Ikanga is being applauded in the state because he built the secretariat.

What I tell you, most of the contractors who did the work have just been paid.

To Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State, success is the delivery of a 100 housing units to mark his first 100 days in office. It went a long way in boosting the people's confidence in government. He is also said to have supplied transformers and cables to improve power supply. But Odili's road rehabilitation efforts were mocked by the rains that washed off stretches of asphalt.

Odili's main drawback, his opponents argue, is that his projects and actions are rather superficial. This is more galling to the administration because, the accusation is coming from Dr. Marshal Harry, national vice-chairman (South- South) of the People's Democratic Party. Harry who worked hard to get Odili elected said the governor seemed to be adrift and plays to the gallery. He said, the governor "did not want to empower Rivers people so that they wouldn't fight him." More like weakening potential centres of dissent. But Odili sees matters differently. "If you have stepped out of supporting a government working for the interest of the public, then if new houses are built, it won't interest you because that is not your objective.

If roads are built, so what? If the choice is going to be service to the selfish interest of a few as against the interest of the public, we will opt for the general public. Whatever comes as a consequence of that, we will deal with it.

Dealing with political opponents has been one area his counterpart in Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyesegha has excelled. From the opposition APP which came with a rash of financial irregularities and his vanquished opponent at the polls who had dragged him through legal furnaces, Alamieyesegha has continued to survive. But as his Chief Press Secretary, Freston Akpor told this magazine last week in Yenagoa, the governor has his hands full with developmental projects. Building schools, roads, office blocks and housing schemes seemed to be the governor's priorities. But as Akpor explained, the numerous trade delegations and plans to establish rice projects are fruits of the governor's trips abroad. On education, Alamieyesegha's dream project of a Niger Delta University is a well-received one, given that it is going to be the first of such projects in the Ijaw area.

Delta and Edo states have on thing going for them. They have helsmen who believe in small but effective government and a larger role for the private sector. The N1.2b housing project embarked upon by the James Ibori administration is expected to ease the pressure on Warri and Asaba. To deliver a thousand housing units, much of the project is private sector financed.

In the transport sector, the Edo State government seemed to have hit a rich mine. Edo Line, the state's transport company that had carved a niche for itself even before Lucky Igbinedion has had a history of contributing so little to the government coffers. In fact, before this administration, the company contributed about N1m annually. An amount that has shot up to N10m monthly with acquisition of new vehicles and a business tilt to its operation.

The main criticism of the Ibori administration has been that his efforts are largely concentrated on the urban towns of Warri and Asaba even though the Asabas accuse him of the undisguised preference for what is referred to as the "main" Delta. And more importantly that provision of jobs hasn't made much impact given that many youths are still okada (motorbike) operators.

In Edo State, the Igbinedion administration is accused of a certain superficiality. His critics say its all show with less substance. Perhaps, in its zeal to do so much, he is said to be legitimizing insincerity. They point to the commissioning of a water project in a community with the visiting Plateau State Governor Joshua Dariye. Villagers say the project has not yielded a drop of water and were wondering where the water they saw at the ceremony came from.

Igbinedion's biggest headache seems to be the Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma. None of its problems are actually his creation. Founded in the second republic, the university made some notable academic strides, but all that is lost to cultism of the most vicious kind and what is popularly known as "blocking" on campus. Blocking is a system of cheating where students influence academic and non-academic staff with money to pass examinations, gain access to restricted files, get admitted without their required O'Level results and many more malpractices that are injurious to a healthy academic environment. The school has since been shut and the governor has vowed to get to the roots of the institution's problems. But he is up against the university's alumni association, powerful interest groups and a very militant student population. If he pulls through his plans, the institution can only be better but critics say care has to be taken so as not to destroy whatever remained of the academic community.

Not exactly the kind of problem Donald Duke contends with in Cross Rivers. Even in times of the derivation bogey, the state's finances are undermined by a federal twist that discriminates between offshore and onshore oil. So Duke has been forced to look inwards to a state that has a marvelous flora and fauna.

In a country with a low tourist traffic, Cross Rivers boasts a modest draw. The Obudu Cattle Ranch has been reactivated and foreigners have begun holidaying there again. Also cash crops, cocoa and palm fruits, crops the state had produced at economic levels before oil took the industry away are back on stream.

But the rival APP accuses him of profligacy in his political pursuits. Duke is accused of wasting the state's resources in ousting a former speaker of the state's House of Assembly and his deputy.

On the whole, the South-South governors, seemed to have deflected much of the criticism to the Federal Government. That's easy to do. The federal government takes the oil that devastates the land and keeps the money to itself. In fact, championing resource control has increased the political profile of governors like Ibori, Alamieyesegha, Igbinedion and even a reticent Attah. Be that as it may, every Nigerian now talks about the democracy dividend and would demand it of the governors as they do of the President.