EFCC should stop demarketing Rivers State – Eleme council boss

As reactions continue to trail the recent comment by the Acting Chair­man of the Economic Financial and Crime Commission, EFCC, Mr Ibrahim Magu, describing Rivers State as headquarters of money laundering, second after Lagos state, Executive Chairman of Eleme Local Government Council, Barr Philip Okparaji, has faulted Magu’s statement. In this interview with BLESSING IBUNGE, the council boss, a journalist, said the EFCC boss should desist from de-mar­keting Rivers state, just as he lauded Governor Nyesom Wike for his developmental strides in the state which he said has earn him inter­national recognition.

How would you assess the pre­sent security of the state un­der the leadership of Governor Nyesom Wide?
We need to thank His Excel­lency, Governor Nyesom Wke for his security architecture put in place. For the first time in the history of Rivers State you can see people freely went out dur­ing the Christmas and New year celebrations without hearing incidents of killings, harass­ment, destruction of properties, because security matters to the Governor and he has put proper security majors, partnered with security agencies to protect lives and properties.

As the Chairman of Eleme Local Government Council, what are your strategies in en­suring the security and peace of the area?
I can say one area we have achieved is the area of restora­tion of peace in Eleme. Eleme was not the way we met it but today I can say we have restored peace, we have restored securi­ty. Eleme was very volatile area before my assumption of office and through a robust partner­ship with security agencies, the council, elders, traditional lead­ers, stakeholders there is peace. And by special grace of God we talk to people, we sensitise peo­ple. Some we gave better oppor­tunities, some we train in differ­ent areas that will make them to be meaningful to themselves and we are able to achieve peace in Eleme. Today, investors that ran away are coming back to in­vest in Eleme. So to me, I give God the glory for the restora­tion of peace in Eleme1. Sec­ondly, I thank His Excellency for his support and the securi­ty agencies for their maximum corporation and understanding.

How would you appraise the leadership of President Mu­hammadu Buhari, especially as it affects Rivers State.
If you want to appraise the leadership of Mr President vis-a-vis Rivers State, I think we all need to give the President our maximum support for him to deliver on the dividend of de­mocracy and deliver on his promises to Nigerians. On provision of security, we need to give him the maximum sup­port. At the same time we need to give the maximum support to the Governor of River State for his own superlative deliv­ery of the dividends of democ­racy in terms of quality projects. A government that has the ca­pacity to carry on with the con­struction of three flyovers at the same time in Rivers State, he needs to be commended, he needs the support of the peo­ple. And I want to use this op­portunity to urge the people of Rivers State that we need to give His Excellency maximum sup­port and maximum corpora­tion. We need to pray for him to succeed. He is leaving behind by the grace of God, some legacies that will stand the test of time. You see; Garrison, Artillery, and Rumuokoro flyovers, these are federal roads but he came in and today they are doing it. Besides that, there are other projects. So Governor Wike has shown ca­pacity in terms of national lead­ership, in terms of political par­ty cohesion, he has shown that capacity, so we need to give him that support.

The EFCC chairman recent­ly stated that Rivers State is the headquarters of money laun­dering. What is your take on the statement?
I totally disagree, I read the report and as a public officer of such a level you don’t just give a statement without a verifiable fact. I have heard people react­ing to it. When you are saying Rivers State is the headquar­ters second to Lagos in terms of money laundering, you are de-marketing Rivers state. You don’t come to Rivers state and de-market the state and say ‘Rivers State is second to Lagos in terms of money laundering because of oil’. There are gen­uine transactions between oil companies, there are genuine transactions between the state governments, there are genuine transaction between the private sectors. So you don’t just come and make those inflammatory statements condemning and de-marketing a state. He is a pub­lic officer and should be able to be guided by decorum. The EFCC, as a government institu­tion should be able to restrain themselves and not by con­demning the totality of govern­ment or the people of Rivers state. That statement is capable of making some person to relo­cate from Rivers state. So I think things should be done with ver­ifiable facts.

Some of the communities in Eleme LGA have suffered setback as a result of oil pollu­tion, what effort is the govern­ment at the state and local level making to ensure the arrest and prosecution of the sources of the environmental degradation?
I think there is a commit­tee set up by the state govern­ment, the Soot Committee. And I think the soot committee are working to reduce the level of pollution, the level of the soot and I think the Ministry of En­vironment are working, collab­oratively with the companies we find in Eleme emitting chemical substance into the air, to reduce the pollutant being emitted into the air. Some of the compa­nies include Indorama, Refin­ery, Notore, and other compa­nies emitting chemicals into the air. I think there is regulatory authority by the state govern­ment working with these people to reduce the level of pollutant. You see one thing with Eleme is that if it rains, the rain is very acidic because of the pollutant discharged into the atmosphere. So we think the regulatory au­thority needs to do more to regulate the chemical being re­leased by these companies.

Recently, Dr Marvin Dekil, Project Coordinator of the Hy­drocarbon Pollution Remedi­ation Project, HYPREP, said the government agency is set to supply portable water to oil affected communities in Ogo­ni, what effort are they doing to ensure that those affected com­munities in Eleme benefit from the project?
I was part of the team of the HYPREP where the report in­dicated that you find pollution mainly in Ogale and Ebubu and what the HYPREP was trying to deny is that Basine was caused by a pipeline product, pipeline crisscrossing the communi­ty and not directly the opera­tion of oil multinational com­pany like Shell. So I think they need to actually provide port­able drinking water as part of their effort, as part of the re­mediation programme. I was part of the team of HYPREP. They didn’t go to Aleto of Ak­pajo and said the area is pollut­ed therefore is because of water transportation to the under­ground water, no. I think HY­PREP came up with a genuine report. There was pollution in where we carried out our as­sessment. I think federal gov­ernment should do more in providing portable water for the people from those commu­nities;, especially, Agbi, Ogale, Ebubu, Ejeama and Alode communites. They should be able to provide portable water while we are covering other ar­eas. You know, we just commis­sioned a water project at Ebubu and that place fall with Ejeama. We saw the plight of the peo­ple and commissioned water for them. So, HYPREP need to carry out the implementation of UNEP report. They should do more in terms of health facili­ty, we have not seen the impact of what HYPREP is doing but I think they need to take a holis­tic look at the report and actual­ly implement the report for the benefit of the people.

Can you recount some of the achievements you have made so far since you assumed office?
We are doing our best since we came into office. As we came in, first we started work in the secretariat and by the grace of God we will commission the secretariat this year. We em­bark on market building; by the grace of God we will commis­sion the market at Akpajo by this first quarter. We have em­powered our people, we con­structed a borehole in Ebubu. We have done rehabilitation of roads within Eleme, we are now negotiating for a constant pow­er supply in Eleme. In terms of security, there is no doubt about that, so we will continue to do more in helping our people.

We are on top of a regular salary payment, we are not ow­ing any civil servant any of their allowances and their monthly salary. Government is a contin­uous process, so we will contin­ue to impact positively on the lives of our people, give them a sense of belonging. By the spe­cial grace of God local govern­ment is the third tier of govern­ment that is close to the people that has a positive impact on their lives and their wellbe­ing. So whatever we need to do to make the people happy we will do it by the special grace of God.