Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has criticised his predecessor and erstwhile Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi for closing courts for about two years during his tenure.
The governor described the development as a coup against the Judiciary.
He said the country had become a place where some people violate the sanctity of the third arm of government without getting appropriate punishment.
A statement yesterday in Port Harcourt, the state capital, by the governor’s Special Assistant on Media, Kelvin Ebiri, said the governor spoke during the New Year state banquet at the Government House in Port Harcourt, the state capital.
Wike said it was preposterous for his predecessor, who closed courts for almost two years and denied people access to justice, to claim that Rivers State had been badly governed since 2015.
He said: “There will be bad administration if there is no good governance. What is good governance? There cannot be good governance if it is not predicated on the rule of law and due process. Who can you actually accuse of bad administration?
“We came to this state in 2015. There was no court. There was a coup against the third arm of government.
“It is only in Nigeria where you can stage a coup against the Judiciary and you will go free. Nobody can stage a coup against the Judiciary in any developed society and go free. You can never. You deny people liberty; you deny them access to justice.”
The governor said it was ludicrous for Amaechi, whose eight years in office epitomised maladministration, to accuse his successor’s administration, which he said is hinged on rule of law, of bad governance.
He said: “I am happy that even if we did not achieve anything, we did not shut down the courts. I did not drag the Legislature to the Government House to pass budgets.”
Wike took a swipe at the National Assembly for confirming Amaechi as a minister, despite what the governor called his predecessor’s atrocious attack against the Judiciary.
“You punished a whole state not to have access to justice and nobody is saying anything. It is only in this country where the parliament can even screen somebody to be a minister that had shut the gate of justice.
“We came, opened the court. Who was the first person that rushed to court when the court was opened? The same man who closed the court; the man who denied other people liberty,” he said.
The Rivers State governor recalled that Amaechi often bragged about building modern secondary schools while in office.
He said a report of the state’s Economic Advisory Council, set up by the erstwhile Amaechi administration, had denounced siting of the schools in locations far from the communities.
According to him, any government that provides the people infrastructure but deny them liberty and access to justice could best be described as a failed government.
Wike said Amaechi had not accounted for the $308 million proceeds from the sales of the state’s gas turbine power stations to Sahara Energy, co-founded by Rivers State All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Mr. Tonye Cole.
“Who’s behind Sahara? The one he is presenting to be governorship candidate,” he said.
The Rivers State governor said if Amaechi had no locus to meddle in the affairs of a state that he wasted N54 billion of its resources on the abandoned 1.1 kilometre monorail project.
He listed the dualised Saakpenwa-Bori Kono road, Ahoada-Omoku road, Egbema-Omoku road, Nigerian Law School, Port Harcourt campus, Trans-Kalabari road and several other projects as some of his landmark achievements.
Wike hailed the legislative and judicial arms of government for working in synergy with the Executive for the collective good of Rivers people.
Credit: The Nigeria Lawyers