By: Amieyeofori Ibim

Our attention has been drawn to a write up by Senibo Chris Finebone titled: “gov wike confesses to grabbing govt buildings and gifting same to his cronies, says rivers APC” which is a rejoinder to our properly articulated response, dismissing Dr. Dakuku Peterside’s feeble attempt to muckrake spurious and unfounded irrelevancies in the commendable effort of the Rivers State Government to recover its own properties and upgrade them to befitting habitable standards.
We are indeed quite saddened by the fact that Senibo Finebone, has in recent times sunk into the murky primordial cesspool of verbal rambling and rigmarole, ostensibly to maintain a reputational ‘presence’ and sustain an unnecessary relevance in the political space.
While we sympathize with his figurative plight in the unenviable task of this new and unedifying advocacy, we are even more amused with his latest indulgence to hold brief for the hapless Dakuku Peterside, “in the confusion and frenzy” to support a simplistic allegation, challenging the constitutionally engrained and inalienable authority of a properly constituted State Government, to recover and develop its own properties, where and how it seems legitimately appropriate.
One would have expected that Senibo Finebone would have been a little bit more guarded and judicious in dealing with the functional and operational semantics in his application and deployment of the phrase, “grabbing government buildings and gifting same ….”; a matter over which we went to great lengths to address and clarify for Dakuku Peterside’s pedestrian understanding.
And in their typical omniscient egotism, Finebone quips that: “The APC will not be surprised if the governor is unable to provide the right answers.” Well we are happy to disappoint you by stating clearly that we have already provided the RIGHT answer in our very detailed and concise clarification of the recovery of government property, which of course we know, is not the answer you are expecting and will not accept.
Once again and for the avoidance of doubt, we declare that the matter is crystal clear and the summary of it is that Finebone either does not understand the art of governance or is completely ignorant of the constitutional authority that
Government has right to revoke properties in public interest.
One is at a loss to figure out which part of the statement: “The Rivers State Executive Council took the decision to recover dilapidated government quarters from civil servants and illegal occupants within Old and New Government Residential Area (GRA), Port Harcourt and reallocate them to competent private individuals,” that Senibo Finebone and the APC do not understand.
And by the way, we take very strong exception to this very primitive, divisive, clannish, discriminatory and sectional mindset which the APC is surreptitiously but with acrimonious intent, trying to sow amongst our people, by categorizing as “cronies” and casting aspersion on distinguished Rivers people who provided sufficient evidence of their capacity and capabilities, to drive the urban renewal intiative of the state government to be beneficiaries of re-allocation of Government properties.
To now describe deserving Rivers people who were reallocated properties in recognition of their capacity to deliver on the urban renewal programme of the state government, as “cronies” of the Governor, is not only churlish and in bad faith, but clearly reflects the divisive nature of the APC which has already pervaded their structure and permeated into the mindset of the factionalized party. We do not need this kind of bitter, divide and rule mentality in Rivers State.
Of course we will overlook all the other petty and snide innuendos about buildings and the weightless and utterly useless threat that “The APC will soon publish a full dossier of Gov Wike’s landed properties (many acquired through proxies, some bought, sold and bought again through a myriad of fronts, etc.). Such threats are for the benefit and enjoyment of rabble rousers and, itenerant cretins who indulge in incoherent arguments.
Finally, we challenge Finebone and his ilk to provide evidence of all those they feel have been unjustly evicted.
It is quite unfortunate that Finebone is definitely in the wrong company and hobnobbing with dodgy companions and the sooner he stops defending the indefensible, the better for him.
Ibim is Special Assistant, Media to the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Rivers State.