How Okonjo-Iweala Stopped Rivers $200m Loan

Rivers State Governor, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, has disclosed that the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala refused to approve a $200million loan meant to provide water for the people of Rivers State because of his disagreement with the President.
He said that other agents/agencies of the Federal Government had stalled development in his state for the same reason.
Speaking at the Nigeria Governors’ Forum Retreat in Sokoto, at the weekend, the governor said,“the African Development Bank (ADB) met with the Rivers State Government. We agreed on the loan and they signed off every document. All the requirements have been met to give us $200million as loan for water in River State. “We travelled and concluded every arrangement but the Minister of Finance, who by international standard is recognised in the world, has refused to sign off for us to provide water for Rivers people.
“Meanwhile, I ,the Governor, I drink bottled water paid for by Rivers people and then, she has refused to sign off for the money to be released so that we can give our people water because Governor Amaechi is against the President. “So it is like two women quarrelling and keeping malice with you. So they are keeping malice with me now and my people should die because I disagreed with the President,” he said.
Amaechi said Nigeria is facing lot of challenges, adding that they could only be addressed if the leaders make conscious efforts to do the right thing.
The Catholic Archbishop of Sokoto, Dr Matthew Kukah, in his presentation entitled: “Good Governance and the Imperative for Managing and Leaving a Sustainable Legacy” charged the governors to leave legacies for which they would be remembered by the people.
He decried a situation where governors receive awards from everywhere without concrete development in their states.
On the role of education in good governance, the clergyman said the nation could not move forward without ensuring that every child was given quality education.
Kuka said: “It is impossible for us to move in any direction at all without seriously, honestly and sincerely committing ourselves to the fact that we have a commitment that no single child in Nigeria be left behind in terms of education. “I’m hearing from the Ministry of Education, all kinds of agencies, the Universal Basic Education that there are hundreds of billions of Naira locked up. “States cannot access the money simply because they have not been able to come up with counterpart funding.
“The truth is that we have not made up our mind about education because I don’t know whether we are not running contrary by having a school where the children attending the Almajiri schools are already stigmatised. “How many really serious members of the Nigerian elite will send their children to these schools? And am I going to graduate one day with a PhD from Almajiri school and I want to be a professor in this country,” he asked.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, who spoke on the “Role of States in Deepening Democracy and Good Governance in Nigeria” lamented that the military terminated the country’s parliamentary system of government that was suitable for Nigeria and replaced it with the presidential system which in essence was a unitary system of government.
Tambuwal faulted the unwieldy powers vested on the Federal Government by the Constitution which “has also made it possible for the Federal Government to control the police making it almost impossible for states to have a significant role to play in crime prevention and law enforcement.
In a communiqué at the end of the retreat, the NGF insisted on transparency in the operations of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and urged Nigerians to stop being docile in the face of monumental impunity in the country.
The governors stressed the need for “intangible aspects of good governance anchored on a framework of ethics, values and political morality to drive development and leave a durable legacy of democratic governance.”

Rivers State Deputy Governor, Engr Tele Ikuru (left), exchanging pleasantries with Secretary to State Government, Hon. George Feyii, during the Miss Port Harcourt Centenary beauty pageant in Port Harcourt, last Friday.