The All Progressives Congress, APC, Rivers State Chapter has uncovered a strategic plan by Governor Nyesom Wike to obtain loans totaling N100b in the few months he is expected to be in power as the governor of Rivers State thereby plunging the state into an abyss of debt and economic servitude.
Spokesman of the APC, Chris Finebone who made this known in a statement said, according to the plan, the governor plans to collect the said amount in tranches of N10b, N20b, N30b and N40b within a period of two months.
The statement reads: Within the past two weeks, Governor Nyesom Wike has already sought and gotten the approval of his lap-dog Rivers State House of Assembly to obtain N10b and N20b loans from Zenith Bank PLC and Access Bank PLC respectively.
Information we are privy to strongly indicates that the governor and his men have started negotiation with Heritage and Eco Banks to obtain another loan of N30b in the coming week or so. This will bring the total amount of loan obtained by the embattled governor to N60b in less than 45 days as governor of Rivers State.
The APC can only agree that the good people of Rivers State have ended up in the notorious Lagos buses used in robbing unsuspecting citizens popularly called ‘one chance.’ With the short-term Wike-led government of Rivers State, indeed, we have all entered a ‘one chance’ bus.
Seriously speaking, it boggles the mind that a sitting governor of a state will embark on such wanton collection of loans by selling the dummy of completing projects to innocent Rivers people without consideration for the long-term negative economic implication of mortgaging the future of the state.
Again, what the ensuing debacle has confirmed is that this government has no concrete plan of its own prior to inauguration especially if the Governor who should be the chief executive officer of the state only recently set up a Steering Committee on Development of Blue Print for Rivers State Government. The question then is: what was the strategic plan of Barr. Nyesom Wike for seeking to govern Rivers State?
The APC would like to state that beyond the dummy of borrowing to complete projects which the governor has been selling to Rivers people, the real intention of Governor Wike’s reckless borrowing is to provide funds for his cronies who have started showing signs of disenchantment and the need to deepen his war chest preparatory to a re-run election that is looming.
Sadly enough, the governor’s obscene borrowing spree is mortgaging the lives and future of the present generation and generation yet unborn to years of economic servitude. As long as the scheme of this governor succeeds, we all and our children yet unborn will be eternally tied to the apron-strings of those cavalier banks that are conniving with the governor while he walks free after being sent packing as governor in a few months’ time.
For the APC, the matter is graver than the governor probably knows. Governor Nyesom Wike should not spend the future of our generation and that of our unborn children in advance. And for the unborn generation, it will amount to robbing them of their existence which the governor does not have a right to because it will be within their human rights to demand reparation by which time the perpetrator may not be around anymore.
