Leaked Audio: Ex-Gov Dickson Calls Bayelsa ‘A Village’ In Banter With Former Commissioner

A leaked phone conversion between former Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, and the state’s former Commissioner for Lands and Housing, Furoebi Akene, has surfaced online. Dickson was heard calling Bayelsa “a village” and a “forest capital” during the 28-minute conversation with the ex-commissioner.

Dickson’s verbal exchange with Akene stemmed from an article the former commissioner wrote and published in a newspaper, criticizing huge debts incurred by successive administrations without corresponding development.

In the leaked tape, the former governor was heard asking Akene, who served as commissioner under his tenure, if indeed he wrote the article that “indicted him”, of which the former commissioner responded affirmatively.

Dickson asked, “I saw on one publication that has your name on it. You wrote that thing? Ah Ah, Na wa oo. You will write that thing even after the last the discussion you came here to have with me? You will write that thing casting aspersions and indicting me and so on like this? You mean you’re not aware of all the developments we brought together even in the government that you served?”

But Akene, responding to his former boss, said: “Sorry, I didn’t indict you,” adding that, “When I served the government, I was sidelined, so I left, and those things I presented there are figures that I got from DMO (Debt Management Office), I stated it there. It’s not only your government (that borrowed).”

The former commissioner, who sounded aggrieved with Dickson, said: “It is our state, some of us worked and were pushed away. We are empty, whereas others carried everything, and that was why I left.

“I told you severally that as a serving commissioner, I sold lands to pay my children’s school fees, whereas others were building mansions in their homes and everywhere. Some have seven story-building of hotels and all that.

“Now I am just doing the facts. There was a time I was calling you but you refused to pick my call. What I am saying is that I don’t say lies. If anybody is disputing it, let them go and dispute with the DMO. I wrote figures I got from DMO.”

Dickson however denied taking external loans as allegedly posited by Akene in the article.

He said, “Akene I never took any external loan ooh. You don’t know how these things (DMO figures) are computed. Bayelsa, as at the time I left, was the least indebted state in the entire South-South. Why didn’t you write that one?”

Akene told his former boss that he had no business with the other states in the South-South region, but noted that the states that were created at the same time with Bayelsa were developing despite getting, “money far! far! far! less than what comes into Bayelsa.”

Dickson responded, “I thought you were comparing states now. You didn’t see the level of debts of other states? Na wa ooh. If it were possible, I would have just made people like you a governor of the state for one term. And you will run away, you Akene. You think you will do better than me? You think you will build more schools, more hospitals and more roads than I built?

“That your state, you people don’t know [that] when they talk of bankruptcy, it means that the state had no IGR to sustain the recurrent expenditure. You people don’t understand and you were in my government. And I am not surprised with the way you are talking [that] you didn’t really understand the problems we were facing and the efforts we were making. You were just consumed by bitterness, and looking at people that they have carried everything while you don’t have anything.”

Akene suggested in his conversion with Dickson that he fell out with his administration because he allegedly failed to defend him when he was being “blackmailed” by some unnamed persons in the then government of Bayelsa.

But Dickson said, “Let me tell you, your level of understanding, working with people and thinking you are better than people you were walking with…. badmouthing people, [put your in trouble]. I took you as my own person. With this mindset you have of ‘Sabi, Sabi’ when you don’t even ‘sabi’ pass other people. You think you’re holier-than-thou. You think that if we look at what you did in that your ministry, somebody cannot write an article about that your ministry?

“You think that you’re the best, that you’re the cleanest, you’re the most patriotic…that is your big problem Akene. But it’s not a problem. The opportunity I gave, that you served, I am waiting for another governor that will take you in the way I did.”

Akene, however, said he was not interested in working with any governor again because, “The frustration I had is enough for me to go back to my private life completely, which I have decided to do.”

He said, “I resigned because of frustration. Apart from David Lyon’s election [that I got involved in] because of my personal relationship with him, [I don’t intend to be involved in politics]. I know that Douye hated me…. I had to work for somebody, and particularly my southern Ijaw that has been abandoned. Nobody talks about our road. I had to support my people. Outside that, I don’t event attend political meetings.”

When Dickson asked Akene who did the road to his hometown, he responded, “How many Kilometers? 6.5km”

The former governor then asked: “Do you know the cost of doing a 6.5km road Akene? Why didn’t [Diepreye] Alamieyeseigha do that road? Why didn’t Jonathan and Sylva do that road? You just condemned people and don’t see anything good about what anybody does. Anyway, I knew what you were doing. You were misled and up till now, you have not woken up. Your mindset is negative and you’re wrong, you don’t know. But maybe later. But you’re even not a young person.”

Dickson further faulted Akene on his claim that his predecessor, for governor Timipre Sylva only borrowed N50 billion during his tenure.

He said, “States like Lagos that are getting IGR of N50 billion, that are owing almost a trillion, nobody is even talking.  The only money I borrowed was for the airport road. So the airport is not important at all?

Akene said that he, “didn’t say the airport is not important, but all those states (Rivers, Lagos) have a lot of major cities that are consuming projects and they are going on. Rivers State is doing four flyovers at the same time. If I tell you the cost of multiple flyovers like those ones”

Dickson told the former commissioner that, “You’re comparing your village…your forest capital (with Rivers). A virgin place that they went to put a state and a capital, coupled with the kind of terrain we have…that we are battling to develop? You’re comparing it with Rivers State? Port Harcourt that has been under development for over 200 years. Do you know the IGR of Rivers State is about N10-N15 billion a month? You will look at Lagos that has been under development since 18 something? You now looked at your own state created in nineteen eighty something.”

But Akene told his former boss that he knew what Rivers State had achieved when it celebrated its 25 years of creation.