The people of Rivers State have vowed that the six-month old Sole Administrator Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe lbas retd, must give to them account of how he used their resources for the period of the emergency rule.
Recall that civil society organisations (CSOs), the state legislators, among others, have already demanded to probe lbas’ administration vis-a-vis the state’s income and expenditure for the period under review.
This time, a human rights activist and environmental activist Ms Ann-Kio Briggs, has also insisted on that, without which the oil rich state may go to court.
The outspoken activist made the declaration at the weekend, in an interview session at Port Harcourt, insisting it’s the right of the Rivers people to know how he used their funds, within the period under review.
“If Ibas fails to account for his stewardship in Rivers State, we will possibly go to court. It must be noted too that he received allocations on behalf of the state, for six months.
“The allocations, we all know were not kept in the Aso Rock Villa. They were being paid into the Rivers State’s coffers. So, when l heard lbas say, he had saved N5 billion for Rivers State, l felt like he had slapped me, like he had slapped the entirety of Rivers State, on top of everything we had gone through.
“For Vice Admiral lbas (retd) to tell a state that receives more than N5 billion as monthly internally generated revenue (IGR), and more than N5 billion monthly revenue from federal allocation, a state with functional bank accounts already, had savings so, he’s not being serious.
“He can’t tell us, he received N5 billion in the six months of emergency rule. Up till now, Ibas has yet to tell Rivers people, if he met anything in the state’s Treasury, when he came.”
On the probability of Ibas, being ex-military officer, the environmental activist noted that, lbas did not come as a military administrator of Rivers State, but as a man with military background, but retired, before appointment by President Bola Tinubu.
Briggs regretted that the administrator handled the state, more like a military man would, than as an elected governor of a state.
“Vice Admiral lbas, a stranger with military background, dispatched purportedly to execute the President’s mandate, came to our state, and then onward, the state was thrown into a backward turmoil, with all the commissioners removed.
“He removed the Secretary to State Government (SSG), the Chief of Staff, only for him to bring other strangers to work with, appointing his own SSG, and Chief of Staff, who is a serving military officer.
She stated that all the projects Governor Fubara had in hand before he took over, were abruptly abandoned.
“Besides that, the question l have is, when he came to Rivers State, how much did he see? Has he told the people? It would amount to high level of disrespect, if he does not disclose it to us. If he does not, then Governor Fubara will be free to claim to have left N500 billion in the state’s Treasury.”
Without equivocation she noted. “No time was l aware that he interacted with the people of the state, as per their development plan, what projects they needed, whether he could do them or not.
There was no discussion. There were no town hall meetings. Ibas was literally dropped from the sky on Rivers people, and the next thing he did was to remove the governor’s pictures. The governor was not out of the office yet. He was merely being suspended but still remained the Governor of Rivers State.
There are many things Ibas has to account for. If we for any reason have to allow what happened here, to fritter away unaccounted for, and should the whole Nigeria allow him go scot free, because he was despatched by the President, other states will suffer similar fate, for the ugly precedence would have been set, Igazetted, and therefore any other President could do it.