The political fight between the governor of Rivers State, Barr. Nyesom Wike and former Managing Director of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside has gone messier.
In a recent war of words, Dakuku described governor Wike as “ignoramus on economy.”
Meanwhile, governor Wike during a live television event while commissioning some of his projects at Abua questioned the authenticity of the academic degrees so far acquired by Dakuku Peterside.
Wike emphasized that the police and all relevant bodies should thoroughly investigate all the schools that Dakuku attended and particularly ensure whether he actually got the real PhD degree.
But in a statement he personally signed and made available to our correspondent, Dakuku said he watched Governor Wike spend more than one hour of “precious time on three national television networks paid for with Rivers tax payers’ money responding incoherently to an interview I granted earlier.”
According to the former NIMASA boss, it was one hour on television that exposed Wike’s ignorance and made Rivers State Government an object of ridicule before the whole world.
The statement reads: “Wike did not fail to prove right those who say Rivers State does not deserve a comedian and an Area Boy as Governor. He literally went to the mud, his natural territory, and muddled up serious issues of statecraft. Wike’s main argument is that I said the budget of a state or an organization is indicative of the aspiration and performance of the economy.
“We wondered how a doctorate degree holder can say such a thing. First is to admit I said so. Let me repeat it, that the budget of a Local Government, State or Nation is the most important document year on year and it encapsulates the hopes and dreams of the people.
“It reflects the capacity, imaginative thinking, ambition and direction of the government. I would not bother to dignify Wike with a reply but will set the record straight for posterity sake.
“A budget is an expression of the economic history and aspirations of any organization including a state. It is painful to school the Governor of a state, let alone Rivers State, about the basic import of the financial estimates of public economic activities; that, like the world over, public income and expenditure estimates are the bedrock of economic activities.
“We may like to know that the revenue estimates are an indication of the size and health of the private sector as captured in taxation; that the expenditure estimates and history are an indication of the growth trend and developmental trajectory of a state or nation.
“I was more embarrassed when I read the statement he authorized his Press Secretary to issue, that one has to respond at the cost of engaging Wike who has expressed clear ignorance in the importance of the document his entire government designs and implements.
“What is clear here is that by these statements, we can now confirm that Wike does not know what he claims to be doing in the government house. No wonder there are ‘seven’ bridges that solves nothing on the same road in nearly seven years of clear ignorance and mismanagement.
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