SUN NEWSPAPER

Port Harcourt: Thursday, midmorning. The taxi had barely driven 15 minutes from the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagba, when it got stuck in a gridlock. The driver drew a long sigh and turned off his engine in resignation. What’s happening? you asked. “Na Wike o,” he muttered. “No road again to pass for Port Harcourt. Construction everywhere,” he added. “Wike wants to turn Port Harcourt into Lagos.”

Driving round Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, these days, is not a comfortable experience. It’s not a permanent discomfort,  though. The state governor, Nyesom Wike, has turned not only the state capital into a huge construction site but the entire Rivers State. Roads are getting makeovers, new ones are being constructed and bridges are springing up here and there.

Commissioner for Information and Communications, Pastor Paulinus Nsirim, told Daily Sun in his office: “Which is better? To leave the roads like that, or construct new roads and bridges? Many constructions are going on at the same time. The gridlock you are seeing in Port Harcourt is only momentary. That’s a price to pay for rapid development. Our people asked for development, Governor Nyesom Wike has answered.”

Wike has been on the saddle for six years. These six years have recorded audacious transformation. Nsirim reminded you that it was in keeping with the governor’s promise to transform and elevate the infrastructural status of the capital city, Port Harcourt, and Obio/Akpor to world class standards and make Rivers State one of the preferred business and leisure destinations in Africa.

Macpepple Briggs, a resident of Obio/Akpor, told Daily Sun: “It never rains for us but it pours. Governor Wike has set a high standard. Even if he doesn’t do anything again, he has surpassed expectations. Obio/Akpor is now catching up with Port Harcourt itself.”

Coming into office at a time when the national economy was struggling (and is still) and with much reduced revenues, the high-flying governor showed remarkable commitment, transformative initiatives and prudent management of resources in performing the task of a miracle worker in governance.

“Governor Wike’s audacious transformation isn’t a 3D creation. Some states create 3D artworks and pass them for projects. In Rivers State, we don’t do that. Whatever is documented is what you see in reality,” said Nsirim.

Most people Daily Sun encountered in the streets of Port Harcourt admitted that one of the governor’s greatest achievements was in road infrastructure. Tonye Princewill, a taxi driver, said: “Give it to him. Amaechi tried during his tenure, but what we are seeing now is unprecedented. All the roads, especially in the state capital, look brand new. It has also helped the lifespan of our vehicles. You don’t need to change your shock absorbers, shafts, bolt joints and springs regularly as we used to do before.”

As he marked his sixth anniversary two months ago, Wike delivered over 100 kilometres of road network, including Trunk-A roads, bridges and flyovers, straddling nearly every local government area of the state, while several communities, for the first time, had internal roads paved for them.

Some of the major single-lane roads he changed to dual carriageways included Igwurunta-Chokochoko Road, Saapkenwa-Bori Road, Tam David-West Boulevard, Rumuokwurishi-Eneka-Igwuruta Road, Reumepirikom-Rumuolumeni Road, Rebisi-TransAmadi-Oginigba Road, Elelenwo-Woji Road, Eagle Island-Iloabuchi Road, Justice Iche Ndu, Elelenwo-Akpajo Road, Biriba Road, Emeyal Road, Tombia Road, Forces Avenue, Olumeni Road, Abacha Road, and Harley Street. Others like Ezimgu, Eastern Bypass. Ahoada-Omoku, and Egbema-Omoku roads are undergoing dualisation.

Wike’s passion for rural development has been compared only to Melford Okilo’s administration in Rivers State during the Second Republic. Six years into his eight-year tenure, Wike is fulfilling his promise to create social, economic and business opportunities for rural dwellers to stem rural-urban migration and also improve community-level social amenities and security.

David Diai, a Port Harcourt-based journalist, concurred at the NUJ Secretariat, Port Harcourt: “I am not from Rivers State but when you see good work elsewhere, praise it. We have seen governors in Nigeria who started several projects at the same time just to play to the gallery, but Governor Wike always finishes whatever he starts. Go to the hinterland and riverine areas in the state, and the quality of works done have remained the same. He has had the same impact.”

To mention a few, internal roads have been completed in Amadi Ama, Elele Alimini, Isiokpo, Filmie, Okochiri, Abuloma, Ozoboko, Abonnema, Odiokwu, Omoku, Omerelu, Ogbakiri, Mgbuosimini, Rumuakunde and Omagba. These internal roads were done with gutters.

The Wike administration has also done extensive work in land reclamation, provision of jetties to communities with Okrika one of the beneficiaries. Testaments abound, too, to his impact in water schemes (Eleme, Isaka, Akpabu, to mention a few), and a number of health centres, from Bile to Odiokwu.

In the last six years, the Wike administration has made education a priority. Among others, he has provided over 11,000 classrooms and toilet facilities, over 2,600 furniture and desks for basic education primary schools. If you visit St. John’s State School at Bishop Johnson’s Street, Port Harcourt, for instance, you will see 16 reconstructed classroom blocks. The Wike Midas touch has also been brought to bear on Government Craft Development Centre, Port Harcourt, and River State University, with state-of-the-art facilities constructed in several faculties. The same goes for Captain Elechi Amadi Polytechnic, Ken Saro-Wiwa Polytechnic, and Ignatius Ajuru University of Education.

With the national economy nosediving at the outset of the Wike administration, leading to the worst economic situation ever faced by the state, a pragmatic Wike began to look for ways to grow the economy, turning it around in a short while and making Rivers the second largest economy in Nigeria, outside Lagos.

Part of the measures he adopted were resource mobilisation, implementing reflationary measures, improving the ease of doing business, finding small and medium enterprises, granting interest-free loans to young entrepreneurs and economic grants to women.

“Each of these women received money ranging from N50,000 to N200,000 to invest in improving their small businesses,” said Nsirim. Today, the internal generated revenue of the state has increased by over 40 per cent.

What’s more, the Mother and Child Hospital, Port Harcourt, is one of Wike’s flagship projects in healthcare. It was hitherto abandoned by previous governments and the NDDC for many years. Among other completed projects in this sector are over 30 health centres. The government has also upgraded the College of Nursing and Midwifery, River State University Teaching Hospital, to mention a few.

From building multiple low-cost housing units, civil servants’ quarters and luxury flats for senior civil servants, the positive impacts in housing have been overwhelming.

Nsirim reacted to the news that Wike was nursing a presidential or vice-presidential ambition in 2023 with laughter: “A governor who’s running for president or vice-president doesn’t spend his money building projects upon projects, especially with two years to go. This is the time the store money for the campaign.