Why I Said Those Coming To Rivers Should Write Their Will- Wike

**Says Monorail Project Will Not Be Completed – 
Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, has explained why he stated that those coming to the state for the rerun election should “write their will.”

Wike, who spoke during an interview with Channels Television said that the statement was directed at those with sinister intention.

According to him, he does not have the minutest form of support for violence as alleged by some of his critics.

In response to a question asked by his interviewer, stating that some people believe that the mode of campaign between both parties for the election partly fueled the violence, and his (Wike’s) remark on the will, Wike said:

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“When you say I said if you are coming here, write your will, if you are coming to deny the people, the people will resist.

“So don’t come here and play any funny game. That has kept them on their toes.”

Wike further stressed that it will be difficult for another party to defeat the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, adding that the state was in a firm grip of the PDP, besides his administration’s modest achievements in its short period in office.

The governor said the state’s internally generated revenue (IGR) had increased from N4 billion to between N9 and N10 billion.

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He said that if there was a high rate of insecurity in the state, as reported in some sections of the media, the IGR would not have increased because investors would have run away.

Wike said: “It is difficult for anybody to defeat us in Rivers State because of the projects I have done in my short stay in office, and the fact that Rivers is a PDP state.

“The civil servants are happy with us. Nobody would be happy when, at the end of the month, they cannot take their wages home.

“We have done much to fulfil our campaign promises. If you go to Borokiri, where the former governor was living at Okaki Street, everybody was afraid to go there because of bad roads. But today, we have fixed the road and the people are happy.

“In Diobu axis, we had many bad roads before now. But today, we have fixed them. The general hospitals were dead; some health centres were not functioning. What we are trying to do, as a matter of policy, is to pick one hospital in each of the three senatorial districts and equip it.

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“We are also going to train and retrain our doctors. For now, we are focusing on health and education. We don’t want to carry all at the same time.

“We received N4 billion as (federal) allocation when our salary wage is N5.5 billion. How do we make up to pay salaries? When we took over, I had an IGR of N4 billion to N5 billion, but as I speak to you, we have improved our IGR to between N9 and N10 billion.

“This means nobody is running away from the state, because if people were leaving the state, our IGR would not have increased. And if the insecurity is much as is being claimed, why is our IGR increasing? Yet, if you read the newspapers, people would say the state is Rivers of blood.”

The governor further pledged not to complete the monorail project started by his predecessor, Rotimi Amaechi.

He said Rivers residents and other stakeholders told him to forget about the project and focus on another, which would have direct meaning on the people.

He said the monorail project consumed over N45 billion, adding that he did not want to have a headache over a ‘white elephant’ project.

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The governor said it was clear the All Progressives Congress (APC) could not defeat the PDP in the state.

He noted that if President Muhammadu Buhari supported him, he would achieve peace and stability in the state.

Wike, however, regretted that the frequent change of his security chiefs would jeopardise his plan to tackle the security challenges in the state.

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