* To float N100 billion business support scheme for rural dwellers
By Johnbosco Agbakwuru
Senator Lee Maeba represented Rivers South-East in the Senate on the banner of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). During his stint in the Senate, he was chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum and one of the strong voices of Ogoniland. Now aspiring to succeed Governor Rotimi Amaechi, Maeba, in this interview, speaks on his vision and mission for Rivers State, his chances and what the state would gain from his administration, if elected.
You aspire to be the governor of Rivers State, how prepared are you?
Lee Maeba
I am very prepared to govern Rivers State. I have been working on a blueprint for the development of River State since I left the Senate in 2011 and I have put together what I say is my vision and mission based on the reality on the ground, I have taken stock of the performances of the previous administrations since the creation of Rivers State and I have a lot of things to offer to harness the full potential of the state.
Now, my blueprint is read. I had extensive consultations with people of the state, stakeholders, women, men, youth groups, students, everybody and the kind of support I have received from all indicate that I will make a good governor, so I have no other choice than to declare for the race.
What is the focus of your blueprint?
My blueprint is focused on about seven vital areas: education, health, infrastructure, agriculture, tourism and culture, women and youth development. With God on my side and the people with me, we will transform and rebuild rebuild Rivers State to a situation where people won’t need to travel from their rural areas to Port Harcourt. We will make sure that we change Rivers State that has been a single city state since creation. That is what I am setting out to change.
There must be one or two alternative cities, you will see second city, third city of Port Harcourt so that those cities will be new cities, built in our own fashion and taken into cognizance that we come from a state where our cultural heritage is one of the best in the country. So, we are going to do a lot of things to make sure that Rivers State is made an emerging Dubai in Nigeria.
The current administration in Rivers State is considered to have done a lot in education and agriculture, how do you intend to sustain these achievements?
The current administration has done a lot of things in primary education and nursery education, beautiful classroom blocks abound. There are complaints that the buildings are so beautiful but they are not big enough to accommodate all the students. So we will add more blocks.
In tertiary education, yes, they moved into building new schools, but there are historic schools like BMGS, Canty Grammar school, Crowther Grammar school, etc. This type of schools are not schools you just allow to decay. So, my focus is to rebuild these schools that were named after our founding fathers. I will rebuild these schools to international standard.
And when we talk about agriculture, yes I see Songhai farms, but when you go to the farm like the one in Ogoni land, you discover that they don’t have processing plants. You can’t plant banana and plantain without processing plants. What I need to do is that if the farm already exist and you don’t have processing plant, we install processing facilities and administrative facilities so that these farms become a total farm.
Also, I will rebuild farm houses so that key technical, engineering and support staff live on the farm. That is what an idea of a farm is, people stay there, live there and work there. It cannot be a complete farm when there are no processing facilities and administrative facilities. So, we will make these farms complete farms.
In addition, we will do our own. In every local government we will focus on cultivating up to 50,000 hectares of farmland. We will be processing maize and when you say maize it is real maize, maize powder, etc. We will have pineapple farm where you really make pineapple juice fresh from the farm, millet farms and soya beans farms where you produce soya milk right from the farm.
How will the common man benefit from your government if eventually you become the governor?
My focus is to transform the lives of people through women and youth development. I will float a N100 billion business support scheme. The purpose of that scheme is to go straight to the grassroots and ask them what they want to sell. If you are making cane chairs, you have raffia forest by your house, we will drive down to your village and give you money and you establish the cane chair industry there. When you process, you will be exporting them from your door step. We will arrange a situation where the buyers will come straight to your door step to buy the chairs, you don’t need to come to Port Harcourt to do anything.
The business support scheme also is to encourage small farmers. If you are planting ugu (pumpkin) vegetable for instance, we will make sure we provide storage facilities in your community so that if you could not sell today, you put it in a storage that can sustain it till the next market day.
I am also going to create a Social Welfare Commission targeted at children between the ages of one and 10 years; Old People’s Home, targeted at providing orphanages. Orphanages have all gone, Old Peoples homes are all gone, I am bringing back the old peoples home. In every local government area, there must be a fully functioning old peoples home and orphanages tied together and provided with a medical facility with doctors and nurses.
Orphanages are going to be run and children in the orphanages will be given free education and health care. There will be upkeep allowance for children between the ages of one and 10 and parents of indigent families that are not employed.
My administration is going to be a grassroots administration, that is why, I am going to turn what people call security vote to social security vote. We will ensure that every kobo provided under the social security safety net is provided for in the social security vote.
On whether he is favoured by zoning formula and power rotation arrangement in Rivers state
One of the objectives of our party, the PDP, in Section 7 subsection 2 (c) is that for purposes of equity, justice and fair play, key positions will be zoned to all the blocs at all levels. The state is divided into three senatorial districts.
In 1999, at the advent of democracy, Peter Odili emerged governor of Rivers state and he is from the West Senatorial District. When he left, Omehia (Celestine) became the governor of Rives State, he is from the East. Omehia now lost his governorship seat to another Ikwere man, Amaechi (Chibuike) also from the East.
If you look back, Chief Melford Okilo, the first civilian governor of Rivers state is an Ijaw man from the West. And Ada George who was governor from 1992 to 1993 is an Okirika man from the East.
So, the only senatorial district that has not produced a governor is the South East Senatorial District where the Ogoni are. That is where I also come from. The Ogoni fought and died for democracy. The Ogoni confronted the military and made all the noise and today we have democracy.
On record, Ogoni man has not been a governor, an Ogoni man has not been a deputy governor, an Ogoni man has not been a Speaker, an Ogoni man has not been a Chief Judge. What has the Ogoni done wrong?
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