Bayelsa’s debt burden mess: APC chieftain faults ex-commissioner Akene’s tirade against Dickson
A recently leaked telephone conversation between immediate past Governor of Bayelsa State, Rt Hon. Henry Seriake Dickson, and his one-time Commissioner for Lands and Survey, Furoebi Akene, has further exposed the likely motive behind a recent scathing article authored by Akene on Dickson’s eight years stewardship in Bayelsa state.
In the controversial telephone chat, which has since gone viral, and the source of which The Nigerian Xpress is yet to verify, Dickson and Akene can be heard discussing the vexatious article, with the former commissioner clearly unable to satisfactorily answer some of the questions the former governor raised concerning the claims therein.
Although Akene repeatedly said the article was not targeted at running down Dickson and rubbishing his legacies, the former Commissioner who resigned his appointment in 2015, confessed that he was frustrated because he was left out of the scheme of things and was not allowed to make money for himself, as his other colleagues did. He also confessed to having worked for the candidacy of David Lyon, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in last November’s governorship election in the state.
In a scathing reacrion to both the article and the leaked phone conversation, however, a chieftain of the APC in Bayelsa State, Hon. Sunday Frank Oputu, described as “treacherous” the allegations of high debt profile against the Dickson administration by Akene.
Frank-Oputu, in a statement made available to the media, yesterday, said Akene’s allegations were “full of treachery, selfishly motivated and filled with inaccuracy.”
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He said although every Bayelsa Indigene has the constitution right to question activities of government and advocate good governance, “the claims of the former Commissioner, who served under the same administration is characterized with selfish motives and anger against those who purportedly Stopped him from benefits while serving as a public office holder”.
He said the former commissioner was bitter that he did not execute contracts while in office which, according to him, is absurd.
”It’s quite unfortunate Akene has continued to display this character. The people of Bayelsa know him; he believes he’s smarter and more intelligent than others when he was made commissioner in the early days of Dickson’s government”
The statement reads in part:
“He questioned the integrity of the Former Land Commissioner during the administration of the Dickson.
“For the records, I must advise our people not to take the claims of the former Commissioner serious.
“He was given a job, to construct a road from his community, Funibiri through Eneware, obololi Ekebiri to join the Ayama axis of the road being constructed by the State.
“The project was awarded to the former Lands Commissioner by the NDDC, when Dr. Tarila Tebepa was the Chairman of the commission. The first payment made was N2 billion and subsequent payments were made. To the surprise of all, Akene went and bought a locally made dredger and took it to his community where they brush somewhere with hands not even with bulldozers. They just brushed, cleared a road and then poured some sands and that’s the end of the road till today.
”A man who could deny his people, access road does not have any moral ground to challenge any leader. If he had done that road, people would have seen him as an agent of development.
“His failure to do that critical road leading to his community, shows that Akene is an agent of underdevelopment. There is a popular saying that Nobody will do a road to your community, except the people from that area are eager for development.
“Akene is supposed to be the one who should have taken that job to ensure that that road was constructed and implemented to the letter but he refused.
“The records are there. People can go and check the funibiri, Enewari, Obololi Ekebiri to Ayama road. This is the worst thing that has happened to the people of Boma because if that road was constructed I believe all the speed boats from our communities, would have been stopping at Ofunibiri rather than going to Yenagoa.”
Frank-Oputu further accused the former Commissioner of intolerance against the former Surveyor-General of the Federation, Awudu.
Hear him: People can recall that Surveyor Akene and Surveryor Awudu, who later became Surveyor-General of the federation, were school mates. Sadly, when Awudu was made Surveyor General of Bayelsa state, it was Akene who stampeded him out of office with false protest and harassment. ”
” The Governor tried to settle the two of them but Akene said he would never work with Surveyor Awudu who had been surveyor general since 1997 till Akene was made commissioner. Nobody ever heard that sands were dropped in the Surveyor General office until Akene became commissioner.”
“There were a lot of stories from the surveryor general’s office every week. There was a time salt was poured round the whole of the surveyor general’s office and Akene blamed it on the Surveyor General alleging that he was the one doing charms.
“By and large, when the man saw what was coming, he went to the governor to seek transfer of service from Bayelsa to the Federal”
“Eventually, the man, with the help of some friends, went to the federal (civil service) and became the Surveyor General of the Federation!”
On the allegation of high debt profile, Frank-Oputu faulted the former Commissioner over the claims that the administration of Governor Seriake Dickson was the most indebted in the State.
Akene’s article had not only accused Dickson of leaving Bayelsa the most indebted, but also alleged that the state was the most backward of all the states created in 1996 – including Gombe, Yobe etc. This was even as he confirmed in the leaked telephone conversation, that he was aware that Bayelsa was the list indebted state in the South-South geopolitical zone, but that he was not interested in such statistics.
Frank-Oputu, however faulted this reasoning thus:
“On the issue of the debt burden, Akene lied. When Sylva took over from Dr. Goodluck jonathan, the debt burden on the state was N86 billion and we had N20 billion Naira shares in oceanic bank bought by Goodluck administration”
“But the debt burden was N86 billion. If people could remember, George Fente addressed a press conference and gave these facts that were there. When Sylva took over, we all know that Sylva took some loans. In fact there was one that was resisted by so many stakeholders of Bayelsa state, when he wanted to take one hundred billion naira from the capital market. A lot of stakeholders wrote to the then Vice President and President that he should not be allowed. But, he was given and several other loans, were taken.”
“Before Sierake Dickson came into office, the debt burden on Bayelsa was over a hundred billion.
And if they are finding it difficult, let them look at the financial report by Timi Alaibe, Okoye Committee which was set up to look at those issues.
“So as far as I’m concerned, he’s economical with the truth… because we know what happened”, he concluded.
