THE INAUGRATION ADDRESS OF HIS
EXCELLENCY CHIEF (BARRISTER) NYESOM
EZENWO WIKE, CON, THE EXECUTIVE
GOVERNOR OF RIVERS STATE ON FRIDAY
29 MAY 2015 AT THE LIBERATION
STADIUM PORT HARCOURT.

Protocol,

My beloved people of Rivers State
It is with great humility and gratitude to
God Almighty, who makes all things well
that I address you today. I feel so humbled,
blessed and grateful to God, whose holy
hands in my life and the trust you have in
me, provided the opportunity for me to
serve as your Governor for the next four
years. Let me on behalf of the Deputy
Governor, Her Excellency, Dr. Mrs. Ipalibo
Harry Banigo express our deep
appreciation to you all for bestowing this
great honour and responsibility on us.

2. Rivers State has been rescued and
reclaimed. It is a new day in our
history, a new dawn to repair and
restore our dear State to the path of
sanity. I invite you all to the table of
brotherhood for the new beginning. I
reiterate my declaration that in the
election there were no losers and
winners. Rather, Rivers State was the
winner and so we are all winners.

3. During the campaigns, we visited
several communities in all the local
government areas. We met with
thousands of people including civil
servants, teachers, students, doctors,
lawyers, traders, market women, the
business community, pensioners and
the unemployed. We were shocked by
the level of despair, anguish,
frustration, pains and worries on the
faces of all those we met.

That his son though...
Ameachi won't like this!

4. We noticed that so many people
were worried about the pervasive
poverty in the land and the hardship
they and their families were going
through. So many parents were worried
about the future of their children
against the backdrop of failing public
education and the lack of decent jobs
for school leavers. People raised
concerns about the continuous
violence, crime and insecurity in our
neighbourhoods. Above all, people were
worried about the systemic failure of
governance and lack of service
delivery. The more the people expected
their difficulties to be ameliorated, the
more the government betrayed their
trust and exacerbated their sufferings.

5. Friends, let us be frank to
ourselves. Today, Rivers State is at the
crossroads. The economy is in
shambles and retrogressing by the day.
Poverty is pervasive. The rate of
unemployment remains a nightmare to
our youths. Workers and pensioners
salaries are months in arrears unpaid.
The menaces of crimes continue to
unsettle peace and security of lives,
property and businesses. Infrastructure
is seriously broken; healthcare and
water services are abysmal, while
public education continues to fall below
desirable outcomes.

6. No doubt, Rivers State has just
been relieved of the most decadent
case of maladministration in our history
– an administration that mindlessly
borrowed and frittered public resources
on wasteful projects, sold our valuable
assets at underpriced rates to fronts
and cronies and left the State financially
crippled with a heavy debt burden.

7. For four years my predecessor
ruled over us with the mindset of a
dictator and promoted impunity to
levels unimaginable. For as long as he
presided, all his actions and inactions
were prodded by obsessive lust for
power actuated by a self-indulgent
messianic gusto. That is why up to this
moment he has refused to get
reconciled to the reality of the new
political order and the resounding
rejection by Rivers people of everything
he symbolizes.

8. In his desperation to sabotage our
vision, he refused to consent to a
smooth transition and mischievously
left us to wallow in the dark. He
prevented us from accessing even the
most elementary ceremonial facilities in
his custody. It was so bad that we had
to travel to Ondo State to acquire the
open police parade vehicle as well as
buy our own machines for the escort
riders. Having vowed without any just
cause never to allow the manifestation
of today’s glorious reality, he fruitlessly
executed various sadistic schemes to
scuttle our inauguration. In the last one
week alone he sought in vain to procure
spurious court orders from the Federal
High Court in Owerre, Lagos, Port
Harcourt, Abuja and Kano to prevent
today’s swearing-in ceremony and
plunge the State into chaos and
senseless political crisis. What a
wanton display of ungodly hatred and
impunity!

9. As you know, every democratic
government rests on a tripod. Good
governance principles always dictate
the supremacy of the rule of law as well
as the equality, autonomy and
interdependence of the Executive, the
Legislature and the Judiciary. Never is
any one arm of government permitted
to dominate, castrate or undermine the
dignity, powers and relevance of the
other arms.

Na so

Unfortunately, these hallowed principles of
democracy and good governance meant
nothing to my predecessor in office who,
despite being the direct beneficiary of the
rule of law, became its greatest betrayer
with imperious rascality. At the last count,
no public institution, including the State’s
House of Assembly, the State’s Judiciary,
the Civil Service and the Traditional rulers
was spared from the Governor’s crass
abuse of powers.

1. For four years our dear Rivers State
was denied the electoral services of the
State House of Assembly. For reasons
of self-preservation the Assembly was
sharply divided and the Governor’s
lackeys exchanged their dignity for
wraps of rotten porridge from
Government House. They repudiated
their responsibilities, put the Assembly
complex under lock and key and
preferred to operate from Government
House under the influence and control
of the godfather to the detriment of
effective legislative duties and
oversights.

2. For the same reasons of self-
preservation, the outgone
administration deliberately contrived a
needless succession crisis in the
State’s judiciary and instigated an
irrational strike among the staff of the
Judiciary to completely dislocate the
judicial system. And as he had wished,
our courts have remained closed to
litigants, lawyers and the public with the
attendant pains and inconveniences
since June 2014 till this day.

3. Not done with his destructive
agenda, the former Governor
descended on our traditional
institutions. He deliberately bastardized
and desecrated our time-honoured
traditional institutions by the wanton
balkanization of a number of such
stools as it suited his ego. This was
especially so with our royal fathers who
maintained the dignity, prestige and
decorum demanded of their exalted
thrones. Never in the history of our dear
State had our traditional institutions
been subjected to undue politicization
and contemptuous treatment.

4. I commend you all on the pains you
have had to bear and the
inconveniences you have had to endure
while the macabre dance lasted from a
truly bitter ruler on an imaginary
vengeance mission. But the good news
is that it is over! It is indeed over. I
salute the warriors of our struggle who
made today possible. I alone, should
not and cannot earn the credit. Never! It
is our collective victory.

5. Congratulations again my dear
people of Rivers State. Let the freedom
bells ring! Let the people shout for joy.
Let them leap and sing to God, who
heard our cries and today impunity and
tyranny have been put to rout. The
vicissitudes of the old ignoble order
have come to pass. Only the remnants
remain. For our elders say: “The fire
wood dies, but the ashes bear its
memory”. We shall send the ashes to
the dustbin of history. But, let me
admonish like the philosophers would
say: “eternal vigilance is the prize of
liberty!’’ We must be on guard to ensure
proper cleansing of the Augean Stable!

6. But this we promise. Never again,
shall our people and our land be
subjected to destruction and waste by
those we mistook, perhaps, for
builders. They failed us. They took
away our mandate, pilfered our
resources and, like the prodigal son,
wasted them with strangers. Thank
God and providence. With the resilience
of our people we have recovered our
land for the good of all.

7. As we reiterated at several fora
during the campaigns, our blueprint is
an agenda of hope. We pledged to offer
a New Rives Vision based on a new
thinking. Our goal is to make Rivers
State a land of peace and prosperity
with boundless opportunities and
possibilities – a place where no one is
left behind because of his or her station
and everyone who works hard can
achieve his or her life’s dreams. Please
be assured that we are committed to
actualizing our vision and mission
already in the public domain.

8. Now that we have become
victorious and have arrived at the home
ward end of our beautiful water-side, it
is time to work, to erect landmarks of
progress and prosperity. Yes, it is time
to deconstruct, reconstruct, rehabilitate
and restore the damage inflicted on our
common wealth.

9. Now is the time for us to rebuild.
To rebuild our State; to rebuild our
educational and health institutions; to
rebuild our occupations and to rebuild
our infrastructure. It is time to provide
new opportunities to maximally touch
the lives of our people. It is time to
restore hope.

On d first day of resumption, sir u started on a good note, by commissioning projects
U a true leader
Hope and pray u will continue and baba on chance will learn from ya style and approach to governance

Unlike d man dat promised to carry our military command to "chibok", u made a promise and ya ve started it

May rivers state be transformed to a paradise, amin

1. For us, the problems and
challenges that any government is
confronted will also define the kind of
solutions advanced in their resolution.
We appreciate that these are difficult
times. But we are confident about the
brightness of our future which begins
today. The enormous natural and
human resources, including oil and gas
deposits, vast arable land, rich
biodiversity and water resources, two
sea ports, an international airport, two
refineries, a petrochemical plant, a
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) company,
a fertilizer company, numerous oil and
gas companies and activities, a
dynamic population and vibrant labour
force, remain solid development sign
posts on which to hinge our march of
progress.

1. Indeed, God has blessed us with all
that a State can ever need to develop
and prosper together as one people.
The missing link however, especially in
the last few years, arose from the
absence of effective leadership to give
purposeful direction, deploy resources
optimally and galvanize the populace
with the right policies to achieve our
collective objectives and aspirations.

2. Therefore, a major significance of
today’s historic event is the opportunity
to break the spectre of misrule and win
the battle for a better Rivers State.
Accordingly, we call on every one of us,
and in particular, our workforce in the
civil and public service to get ready to
work with patriotic spirit, commitment,
devotion to duty and honesty to restore
dignity to our state and our public
institutions battered and demoralized.
And as a government we humbly
request and oblige you to hold us
accountable for the following in the next
four years:

3. We shall return power to the people
as we conduct our common affairs with
the fear of God and ensure that
everyone is equal and accountable
before the law. Our government will
certainly be that of the people, for the
people and by the people. Under our
watch, the principle of separation of
powers shall be operative. Equality and
mutual respect for the constitutional
status, powers and functions shall
prevail among the three arms of
government.

4. By the grace of God, and as an
initial step towards restoring its
autonomy, I shall on Monday, June 1
2015, proclaim the opening of the 8th
Session of the Rivers State House of
Assembly in its proper location and
venue to enable our elected legislators
to perform their law-making and
oversight functions. Under my watch,
never will the Rivers State House of
Assembly be subjected to sitting at
Government House or any other
improper venue in utter disregard of its
autonomy.

5. Similarly, in furtherance to our
pledge to restore the independence of
our judiciary and enhance justice
delivery in the State, we will guarantee
full financial autonomy to the judiciary
by ensuring that its funds are captured
as first line charges in subsequent
budgets of the State. We shall also
prioritize the welfare of judicial officers,
including enabling judges to retain their
residential accommodation upon
retirement for life.

6. We had severally condemned the
prolonged absence of a State Chief
Judge and closure of our courts and
promised that these issues will not
remain unresolved beyond a day after
today. Therefore, in fulfillment of our
promise to reopen our courts and
restore normalcy to the State’s
judiciary, I hereby, in exercise of my
powers under section 271(4) of the
1999 Constitution, as amended, appoint
the most senior High Court Judge in
Rivers State Judiciary, the Honourable
Justice Daisy Okocha as the Acting
Chief Judge of Rivers State. Her
Lordship will be sworn-in on Monday
1st June 2015, after which she will be
required to immediately terminate the
dark moments of our ignoble judicial
history by reopening the courts for
business. Under our watch, never again
will the doors to justice be deliberately
and punitively shut against the people
of Rivers State.

7. In the same vein, I hereby, in
exercise of the powers conferred upon
me by section 281 (4) of the
Constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria 1999, as amended, appoint the
Honourable Justice Christy Gabriel-
Nwankwo, as the Acting President of
the Rivers State Customary Court of
Appeal following the indefinite
suspension by the National Judicial
Council (NJC) of the holder of that
office. Justice Christy will also be
sworn-in on Monday 1st June 2015.

8. Nigeria is a democracy and people
are free to hold and express divergent
views and opinions as well as to form
trade unions for the purpose of
collective bargaining without the fear or
pain of any harm. As a government we
shall not violate or tolerate the violation
of the democratic and constitutional
rights of Rivers State workers by any
authority, be it public or private.

9. In consequence therefore and in
exercise of the powers vested in me as
Visitor, I hereby direct the management
of the Rivers State University of Science
and Technology to immediately recall
and reinstate to their duty posts with all
their rights and privileges restored, all
the academic staff of the University,
who were purportedly disengaged from
service on account of their membership
of the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) and participating in
a legitimate strike action called by the
union.

1. Let us at this point specially
congratulate our traditional rulers on
the noble role they have played in
promoting the dignity and sanctity of
our sacred traditional institutions and
for wisely guiding our people to
maintain the peace throughout the
campaigns. We specially appreciate
those of you, our royal fathers, who
remained calm, unruffled and fearless
despite provocations and attempts to
unjustifiably balkanize and diminish
your domains. We assure you all that
our government shall revisit the issues
thrown up by the recent appalling
amendments to the State’s Chieftaincy
Laws and ensure that justice, prestige
and respect is restored to our natural
rulers.

1. As a government, we shall be
workers’ friendly. We acknowledge the
public and civil service as the engine
rooms of development and our duty to
enhance their wellbeing for greater
productivity. Against this background,
we shall give priority to prompt
payment of workers’ salaries and other
entitlements; clear the backlog of salary
arrears unduly owed and ensure regular
merit-based promotions. We are
committed to restoring the pride of the
civil and public service through value
re-orientation, exposure to regular
training and meaningful motivation for
efficient and effective service delivery.

2. Our collective quest for a
prosperous future depends on making
Rivers State economically strong and
self-reliant. To realize this basic
objective, we shall develop and
implement an economic development
blueprint that leverages on our
strengths to make Rivers State the
industrial hub of Nigeria in oil and gas,
agriculture, maritime and tourism
businesses.

3. Additionally, we shall promote
investment in partnership with private
investors for the utilization of our large
reserves of kaolin, silica-sand for the
ceramic industry; explore opportunities
in wood processing and energize
participation in large scale commercial
farming, agro-allied business ventures
and the promotion of a green economy.

4. No doubt, Rivers State has the
geographical advantage and resource
endowments to attract serious
investors in order to diversify the
economy of the State. We will therefore
deliberately create the enabling
environment to attract local and foreign
investors into Rivers State by tackling
the challenges of multiple taxation,
irregular power supply and insecurity.

5. In growing and managing our
economy we will focus on poverty
reduction through job creation and
expanding business opportunities for
our people. We intend to achieve this in
part, by encouraging Rivers people to
participate in both the upstream and
downstream sectors of the Oil and Gas
industry and also, through a strategic
engagement drive, ensure that our
people benefit from the local content
policy of the oil, gas and maritime
industries.

6. Certainly, agriculture, being the
bedrock of human civilization, will
receive priority attention to guarantee
food security, stimulate agro allied
businesses and create jobs for our
people. Rivers State is endowed with
arable land, aquatic and marine
environments, a rich Atlantic Sea Board
for fisheries development. In addition,
we shall reform land administration and
fast track the issuance of certificates of
occupancy to enhance land acquisition
for agriculture and other commercial
and social ventures.

7. Rivers State is a haven for tourism.
Our numerous river courses, forest
reserves, rich biodiversity and beautiful
beaches are beckoning on us for full
scale development attention.
Consequently, our tourism policy thrust
is to provide a clear plan for the
development of tourism, especially eco-
tourism in Rivers State in partnership
with the private sector.

8. This administration envisages a
State that should be the knowledge-
base of the nation. To this end, we will
give serious attention to the provision
of quality education to all at all levels
by improving budgetary allocation to
the education sector. We shall also
effectively implement the Universal
Basic Education Scheme and demand
total devotion and accountability from
our teachers through effective
monitoring and supervision. The era of
throwing money at public education
without the desired results is over. We
intend to reintroduce a functional
boarding system in public secondary
schools and increase funding for
research and innovation in our tertiary
institutions. We will also fund a
competitive local and foreign
scholarship scheme for brilliant
students of Rivers origin to enhance
manpower development in critical areas
of local and national needs.

9. On healthcare delivery, we are
determined to ensure that our people
have access to affordable and quality
healthcare. To achieve this objective,
we will adequately rehabilitate, equip
and staff all existing General Hospitals
and health centers across the State. As
a permanent solution to the challenge
of inadequate manpower, especially
medical doctors, in the health sector,
we shall establish and ensure the
immediate take-off of a Medical School
in the Rivers State University of Science
and Technology.

1. As your Governor, I will ensure that
we build the infrastructure, including
first-class all season roads, bridges,
canals, jetties and other mass transit
infrastructure that the State needs to
drive socio-economic development.
Specifically, we intend, subject to
available funds, prioritize the
completion of all on-going roads
projects; construct the trans-Kalabari
costal road network, dualize the
Ahoada-Omoku road; Sakpenwa-Bori
road; and Oyigbo-Afam road, among
others. We shall also tackle the
challenges of urban renewal, road
congestion and traffic gridlock in Port-
Harcourt City, Obio/Akpor and other
major population centers in Rivers
State.

1. Our administration will ensure that
the fruits of development get to every
path of the State, including the rural
areas by implementing an integrated
action plan that takes the entire State
into consideration. Already, we have
concluded plans to reticulate pipe-born
water to Abonnema, Gokana and Khana
communities within our first 100 days in
office. Furthermore, as a deliberate
policy of promoting the growth of more
cities in the State, we shall modernize
development infrastructure at Ahoada,
Bori and Degema towns to facilitate
their gradual transition to new cities in
Rivers State.

2. We will seek to enhance our
prosperity through power supply and
energy security. Until steady power
supply is taken for granted, our
development efforts will be in jeopardy
and so we will strive to achieve power
and energy security for Rivers State in
partnership with the private sector and
the Federal Government as well as
ensure the completion of ongoing
electrification projects. As an initial step
towards tackling the challenge of
irregular power supply before making
fresh investments, we will conduct a
forensic audit to find out the reasons
behind the failure of the State to reap
maximally from the huge investments
already committed to the power sector
by the immediate past administration.
We will also review all issues relating to
the secret privatization and or sale of
the government investments in power
and other related projects without due
process.

3. Our women are our wealth. The
new vision means empowering women
through concrete and direct initiatives
to enable them build strong family
values and play key roles in the
development of the State. More
importantly, we will work to reduce the
rate of maternal mortality in our
society, promote gender equality and
discourage all forms of discrimination
against women as deliberate policies of
our administration.

4. We believe that our youths
represent our strength and our future.
Our goal is to develop the youth to
realize their full potentials as future
leaders who constitute the critical mass
of our human capital asset base. We
will create opportunities for the youth to
acquire needs-based vocational training
and lifelong skills that will enable them
gainfully fit into the society. Our
Government will partner with the private
sector to expose our young ones to the
numerous opportunities provided by
Information and Communication
Technology (ICT), the oil and gas
industry and entrepreneurship
development.

5. Besides, our new vision
acknowledges the importance of sports
and recreation to the socio-economic
mobility of youths both within and
outside the country. The global
economy today has sports, recreation
and tourism as the key pillars of
development. For instance, football,
basketball, boxing, athletics, generate
huge revenue and resources for active
participants. These activities are youth
based and they would attract the
attention of our government to
systematically promote them.

6. On environmental protection, our
mission is to create a responsible
management strategy for the
sustainable benefit of the present and
succeeding generations. For us,
environmental protection is a task that
must be pursued with greater intensity,
direction and clarity of vision because
the environment as our common
heritage and the foundation of our
existence. In consequence, we will
ensure that all relevant legislations and
policies on the environment are
enforced as well as ensure efficient and
sustainable management of wastes
through the collaborative efforts of
stakeholders.

7. We will further enter into strategic
partnership with the Federal
Government, the oil companies and
communities to clean-up polluted
communities and adversely impacted
sites throughout the State as well as
ensure the protection of vulnerable
shorelines through land reclamation
and embankment and, afforestation
through massive tree planting.
8. Let me also assure you that we will
not abandon our responsibility to
protect the weak and lend a helping
hand to the needy. To this end, our
administration will provide social safety
nets for senior citizens, the elderly and
vulnerable persons to enable them live
in comfort and happiness. We will
reform the pension scheme to ensure
prompt payment of retirees, as well as
provide free medical services for the
aged and children with appropriate age
brackets and improve living conditions
in old peoples’ homes, orphanages, and
motherless babies’ homes in
collaboration with faith based and
voluntary organizations.

9. Fundamentally, during the
campaigns, we also promised to secure
our State. No government is worth any
value if it cannot guarantee the security
of lives and property. I assure you that
never for a moment will our
administration be a captive of politics,
when it comes to public security. We
have the political will to fight, defeat
crimes and criminality in Rivers State.
There will be effective coordination,
collaboration and synergy with the
Federal Government, the law
enforcement agencies and our
community leaders in the prosecution
of the war against cultism, kidnapping
and armed robbery. We urge our people
to fully co-operate with us in this
direction.

1. My fellow citizens of Rivers State,
we told you when we were seeking your
mandate, that our promises are our
bond. Once again, our promise to you
is that, we shall work tirelessly to
actualize these goals, objectives and
targets. But as human beings, we are
not perfect and cannot lay claim to
having all the answers to the problems
and challenges confronting us as a
State and as a people. This is why we
shall need your wisdom, prayers and
support in diverse ways because
working together we can do and
achieve much more. We shall also call
on you to make necessary sacrifices so
that collectively, we can make Rivers
State the place that we can all be proud
of with confidence in the great
possibilities ahead.

1. At this point, let me also assure our
people that our government, and indeed
Rivers State, will not be on a war path
with the Federal Government. We will
cooperate and meaningfully engage the
Federal Government to develop the
Port-Harcourt International Airport to
accommodate additional International
routes and flight frequencies. We also
commit to working with the Federal
Government to complete the Bodo –
Bonny and other federal roads, as well
as ensure the optimal utilization of the
seaports in Port-Harcourt and Onne for
greater commercial and economic
progress. We assure you that Rivers
State will not only continue to serve as
the Treasure Base of the Nation, but we
will also ensure her beautiful people,
will be equal partakers of the resources
of the land.

2. I cannot savour this day without
conveying my personal appreciation
and profound gratitude to His
Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan, GCFR, and his lovely wife and
former First Lady of Nigeria, Her
Excellency Dame Dr. Patience Faka
Goodluck Jonathan for the priceless
love, tremendous support and wonderful
affection you extended to me and my
family in the course of this venture. The
former first family has remained a
strong pillar to me in many ways and I
cannot thank you enough. I pray to God
to specially bless you for me now and
always. I wish to reaffirm my
unflinching loyalty as well as assure our
amiable political leader that if I have the
opportunity again, I will firmly stand by
you.

3. Finally, it is with an eternal sense of
love that I express my profound
gratitude to my beloved wife of
inestimable value, Justice Suzette, our
lovely children Jordan, Joaquin and
Jazmyne for graciously standing by me
all through this difficult and strenuous
struggle.

4. The work begins now! As a sign of
our commitment to hit the ground
running on our march to meaningful
progress, please join me and the
Deputy Governor, Her Excellency Dr.
Mrs. Ipalibo Harry Banigo as we
proceed from here to the UTC junction
and two other sites to flag-off the
operation zero potholes in Rivers State
project. We wish to assure you that
hope has returned and Rivers State
shall once again be the pride of our
nation.

5. Thank you all for coming. Thank
you all for your attention and May God
continually bless our land. Gusto

www.scannewsnigeria.com/news/wikes-inauguration-address-on-may-29/

Ateke Tom

The person that wrote this speech for Wike needs to take a crash course in speech writing. The fact that the man himself speaks grammar like somebody that has hot yam in his mouth would surely not help matters.

God bless Gov. Wike.

Amaechi, ntorr

yeah

stebell:
God bless Gov. Wike.
Amaechi, ntorr