Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, recently hosted some Nigerian Editors as one of the highlights of the Standing Committee Meeting of the Nigerian Guild of Editors which held in Yenagoa. Below are excerpts from the conversation he had with the Editors.

 Outstanding transportation infrastructure

 There’ s so much that we have done.  It’s not the case of the Agama lizard falling down from the tree and nodding its head to praise itself, but it is something you’re voted to do, if you don’t do it then you’ll go with shame. I believe it is because of our performance that Bayelsans are saying we deserve a second term. I agree with them.

With what we have achieved, even when we leave generations will remember us. There was a governor who started a road and for 60 years, it has been on the drawing board, between Nembe and Brass and that’s one high oil-producing area in my state. Everybody has forgotten that road, including their son (Timipre Sylva) who became a governor for 5 years and is now contesting against me. In his own case, he even said that the road is not economically viable, when he was governor and today the road that is not economically viable between Yenagoa and Nembe has been completed and we have started the one to Brass, which is by the Atlantic Ocean.

 Deepening our Blue Economy

 If we get the road completed, we’re building the blue economy by the Atlantic Ocean, in terms of tourism, and several other things that will attract investments to Bayelsa and each of these roads have those potential. That one is the eastern flank of the state and the East Senatorial district. The one you saw by the bridge, the temporary bridge, is completed. We’re using that one to now construct the main bridge which is at the Central Senatorial district where I represented as a senator and that also leads to the Atlantic Ocean and connects communities in that corridor. The last one is the East road, the one you didn’t go to, it was started by the NDDC and they abandoned it. The former governor came and took it up, did it to a certain level and couldn’t complete it.

Today I’m proud to say that we have completed and tarred the road to Ekeremo the headquarters of the local government of  Ekeremo, which incidentally is my mother’s  Local government.

We had to fix the road further to the Atlantic Ocean and by the time we got to Agge which had already been designed and designated for a deep sea port, even without doing anything, ships are already there in Agge loading oil.

If you build a road to Agge, it will ease off all the issues we have in Lagos in terms of port congestion. The road will now make it closer, particularly for our brothers from the East to get to the deep Seaport to get their goods to the East and other places.

Each of these roads have very huge economic implications and potential for our state, that’s why we’re very serious in ensuring that we get them completed even if it means borrowing to complete them, we should be able to put our hands on something to say we didn’t borrow the money to eat but we borrowed for development.

Human capacity development and education

I discovered that in the state there’s a lot of emphasis of paper qualification, we have a lot of people who have graduated and have Masters, PhD etc. And they have no job. To do POP, you have to go and look for people outside and some of them are non-Nigerians and so part of my policy shift in education was to de-emphasise paper qualification and go for science and technical education.

As we speak, in every local government our policy is to construct a new science and technical college, except for Yenagoa that we had one and the second one which is under construction we have almost completed that one too.

The one in my community is also almost completed, those in Sagbama and Ekeremor too are also almost completed.

Our policy emphasis is such that we don’t go looking for foreigners to lay tiles and do POPs, that way they’ll also become self-employed and no one will go out there to say they’re unemployed graduates and then they become cyber rats.

Boosting SMEs

 What we have done in this regard is that monthly, we set aside some monies to encourage SMEs including some of these women selling vegetables. The previous Federal Government was giving them N10,000 through the TraderMoni scheme.

Here we give N200,000 monthly. We have 105 wards and across these wards there’s always one or two beneficiaries every month and now we’ve increased it to four and we’ve had a lot of people come to testify how the money has helped their small business.

Workers’ welfare and gratuity

When I took over, the senior citizens who served the state and retired  were not paid gratuity, even from the era of the same man who is challenging me today. As I came, we started paying gratuities and in fact for anyone who has retired under me it’s automatic and now we’re paying the backlog of what we met.

I think the complaint in my state is that I pay salaries too early, because our policy is that latest 27/28^th of every month, everyone is paid and we’ve carried it on until today.

High cost of roads/infrastructure

We’re not here to deceive people. I don’t play politics with development and like you rightly noted, the cost of building one kilometre road here is like the cost of 20/30km road elsewhere.

I was happy when the Sultan of Sokoto came to inaugurate that dual carriage way. He said if it was in Sokoto you just remove the road and pour the laterite and road is constructed.

When we talk about the roads we have built, some people went on social media and were asking why they were giving the governor accolades, and these were the same people who were in power for 5 years and didn’t do any road of that magnitude, the best they could do were street roads, even those street roads all of them went bad and as we speak I’ve been repairing roads, no proper drainage and the asphalt is so thin. It was more like a scam, but we are now building concrete roads that will last long. They said they have built 50 roads but we have built over 50 under our 3 years and still counting.

We’ve not even counted the internal streets/roads and we have over a hundred. The solar lighting system on the roads are one of the best.

 New Yenagoa City

For us we have opened up Bayelsa again. We have carved out a new area and declared the whole of that area New Yenagoa City, a planned area so that one does not just go and build. You must go and obtain permission from the state government so that you build according to the plan. In other words, we’re developing a new Yenagoa city in Bayelsa.

Youth Development

You’re aware that Bayelsa is the state now to beat in terms of sports in this country.  We’ll put in our best for the period that God has given us the grace to serve our people. If every leader does that, our states collectively will be better. The states contribute to the overall development and peace and unity of the country.

Security in Bayelsa

 Bayelsa state was known for insecurity, militancy and a whole lot and since I came, I de-emphasised cultism and militancy and so they have no way to thrive in the state.

We’ve had relative peace and security in Bayelsa and of course there’s no state that you can have  one hundred percent security, but generally speaking, you can walk the streets of Yenagoa by 2am and you’ll be safe. That’ why you hear the people say, “we cannot go back to Egypt “where Timipre left the state.

We can’t go back to the time when youths were killed on the streets of Bayelsa and there was general feeling of insecurity. In a place called Tombia Roundabout,  no female can cross that place by 6pm because when you get there it’s a den of criminals and when I came, I moved in there with my security by 4am and we dislodged them.

We saw arms, arrested some of them and some escaped. We were able to turn the place around. We changed it and gave it the kind of solar lighting like we have it today. We also expanded the roundabout and today people go there to take pictures. The same place that was dreaded over the years is now a resort centre.

In fact, when I got to New York to honour an invitation by the Ijaw youths there, I met a woman who came to Bayelsa from New York, she came to Bayelsa and got to the roundabout and in the night she saw the place and the solar light blazing and asked where it was and she was told it’s the Tombia roundabout. She doubted it and said for this alone, the governor must have a second term.

Building the best Media Centre

We have the best equipment in our radio and television stations. I don’t know any other state that has the kind of equipment we have there. When I came in, the mast of that place had fallen, it was looking abandoned. I removed all of it and we built a new modern structure and changed the face of the place with modern equipment and so we looked through and thought what name will be befitting for the place and we named it after Ernest Ikoli, a media icon from our state and we believe that this will also encourage a lot of you media professionals.

I appreciate you for taking time to come to this state and for endorsing me. Out of all the endorsements, I think this is the best because this the group that criticises more than any other. They’re the opposition to the government and if you’re bought over, including the judiciary then we’re finished as a nation.