Amaechi has done more than we asked for – Sen Ake

Sen Ake
Senator Wilson Asinobi Ake represents Rivers West Senatorial district in the Senate under the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. He is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Labour. In this interview, he addresses recent issues concerning the crisis in his party in Rivers State. Excerpts:

What is your assessment of the current administration in Rivers State?
For me, I still believe that the greatest asset of any nation or any group of people is the human asset and anyone trying to harness that asset, that human resources by giving them opportunity to excel will definitely help to make the society excel.

The government in my place has taken the issue of education very, very seriously. The quality of primary education which I also believe is the foundation of any society, if you don’t have a good early education, you keep struggling in the later days of life but he has provided very good foundation for our children and also, he has provided for all those not within that range, educational opportunities outside the shores of this country by giving massive scholarship to our children to study overseas. So, with what he is doing, you can begin to have a mental estimate of how Rivers State will become like in the next ten years.


Ake

By the time these children in primary schools will grow through the learning environment they are passing through to the quality of secondary school he is also building and then, giving them opportunity for higher institutions, then you can be able to measure or have mental idea of what our workforce in Rivers State look like and how the input and the output is going to be. I believe Amaechi has given Rivers people more than they had asked for from him.

But given the performance you mentioned, why is the governor still being tackled at home?
Well, there is no way you will work to the satisfaction of everybody; it depends on how you perceive development. It takes an open mind to understand when there is development. There was a man I met who told me that Amaechi has worked but he hasn’t benefited directly from him. That is how he views development. So it depends on the way some people perceive development and because of high level of ignorance.

We suffer when we don’t know what somebody is doing in our society for the growth of tomorrow, so no matter what you do, it is not everybody that will be very happy, it is not everybody that will be very pleased with everything you are doing, they must find a way of discrediting you. For us as true Rivers people, we believe that he has taken a very good measure to lay a very good foundation for the state.

Are you not worried over the controversy trailing your state branch of the PDP?

Definitely, every true Rivers State person and every true member of the party will be saddened by what is really going on in my state. We believe that it is like in every other human organization where there is up and down and that at the end of the day, reason will prevail and peace will reign and we will come back and forge ahead with one political family.

Do you believe that constitutional procedure was followed in the sacking of Obio Akpor Local government council?

I am a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and those that carried out that action are legislators in the Rivers State House of Assembly. Usually, when decisions are taken in parliament, there must always be some dissenting voice. If somebody feels strongly that they have done something illegitimate, in not following due process, has it been examined by law? Because we have laws that we have to resort to and I am sure some people have gone to court, so it is now within the court to say whether they had followed due process or they had not followed due process.

Do they have the law, local government law before them? So if they have the local government law, which I know all the states have, to govern activities of local governments in the states, if they have followed the processes legitimately, why should we question their action?

You know, when there was problem when Late President Yar’Adua was ill and we had to adopt the doctrine of necessity to settle the issue. It did not mean that we couldn’t have done otherwise but for the sake of the country, for the sake of the nation, we had to adopt something that would save the situation.

Interest of people
So, whatever is the interest of people, let them tread carefully that these are elected persons of the state, they have a duty to the state and that the decision was passed by the majority of the members in the State House of Assembly. That is very important. We must give them that, because it not when a decision does not favour you that you think that decision is wrong and that it is only right when it favours you. I think that legislators have some levels of responsibility and immunity and if they have done their job and you are not happy about it, I think the most appropriate thing you should do is to go to the law court to air your views.