Rivers State not treated as part of Nigeria, says Gov. Wike
Governor Nyesom Wike has accused the Federal Government of treating Rivers State as if it was not part of Nigeria.
Wike said this on Monday when he received a delegation from The Sun, which visited to present to him a letter notifying him of his emergence as winner of the Man of the Year 2020 award in Port Harcourt.
He said it was an injustice to exclude the state from those to benefit from the proposed World Bank loan.
He described it as hatred against a major state servicing the national economy. He said: “Look at the hatred: that you collect money from World Bank and Rivers State is excluded.
“If fiscal federalism does not start today, it will start tomorrow.
“That is essence of governance.
“Give me what belongs to my state to develop my state.”
Wike said he was baffled by the way things are done in Nigeria, condemning politicisation of government’s good policies.
On the controversial collection of Valued Added Tax by states, Governor Wike said he had no objection being a “brother’s keeper” so long as things were done legally.
He said: “Let me say clearly: it is unfortunate what we have in this country today.
“Ordinarily, I shouldn’t have said this.
“Bu, what I don’t understand is how everything is being politicised to ethnicity and religion.
“I have not seen a country that will never come out to say this is the right thing we are doing and this is the wrong thing we are doing, we need to correct it.
“When you raise an issue everybody knows is wrong, instead of people to see it from that perspective that this is wrong, we see it from the perspective of ethnicity.
“We see it from the perspective of religion.
“I have never seen a country like this in my life where something that is black and white, we begin to look at it well…are you sure it does not look like dark, blue?
“You don’t even need to be a lawyer to know that VAT …