PORT HARCOURT, Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Rivers State government is seeking refund of N82 million that was allegedly spent on Professor Wole Soyinka’s 80th birthday dinner by the immediate past administration in the state.
Wole Soyinka
The state Commissioner for Information, Dr. Austin Tam-George, said government would officially write the Nobel Laureate for refund if it finally establishes that the don received part of the money.
Addressing the people of the state via a radio programme in Port Harcourt, Tam-George alleged that the Amaechi administration, using the Ministry of Information and Communications headed then by Ibim Semenitari, incurred N1.1billion debt through frivolous expenditure.
“I will seek the permission of Governor Nyesom Wike to formally write Professor Wole Soyinka, a known supporter of Amaechi, if he received part of the N82 million spent on a three-hour dinner hosted for him by the Rotimi Amaechi administration.
“If he agrees that he received such funds, then he will be compelled to refund same to the coffers of Rivers State. At present, we have presented these details to the police for investigation and prosecution. We shall also take up this matter as a financial crime against the people of Rivers State. “
He said all “fraudulent actions” of the Amaechi administration were being addressed by Wike government, pointing out that it will take time for the legal process to be completed.
The Commissioner said the former governor “ betrayed the trust of Rivers people by embarking on irresponsible expenses, which led to the mismanagement and fraudulent misuse of N3 trillion that accrued to the state under his watch.”
Tam-George stressed that Wike parted ways with Amaechi on issues of principle.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has debunked the allegation of misappropriation.
In a statement from his Media Office, he warned the governor and the “coterie of court jesters and attention-seekers in his administration to desist from peddling lies, making false allegations and criminalising legitimate government transactions in their desperate bid to discredit my person and reputation.”
The press release urged Wike to go to court if he had any case of fraud or misappropriation of state funds against the minister instead of “these silly distractions.”
It added that the current allegation was aimed at distracting the people from the governor’s “massive electoral fraud during the last elections which different courts have and his gross incompetence and woeful performance at the helm of affairs in Rivers State, as things continue to go from bad to worse.”
In his reaction, entitled, “Those who flounder in the sewage of corruption,” the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, while frowning on the development noted that “it was not, and remains not my business to probe into the catering and logistical implications of the hundreds of institutions and governments all over the world to whom I acknowledge an immense debt of unsolicited recognition over the years.
“Since then however, I have learnt of some unsavory statements by the insecure incumbent of the Rivers State Government Lodge. These included a loose invitation to anti-crime agencies to investigate the potential crime of being honoured through any occasion.
The unprecedented call by this governor is prescient of a warning I recounted in my recent pamphlet publication, THE REPUBLIC OF LIARS, and was taken from my address to an anti-corruption global conference that took place in Tunisia two years ago. Those words were: CORRUPTION STRIKES BACK.
In this ongoing instance, that expression translates most vividly as “Those who are neck deep in the sewage of corruption ensure that they splatter sewage in all possible and improbable directions.”
Credit: Guardian (UK)
