Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt

The frosty relationship between the Bayelsa state Governor Seriake Dickson and  Prof Kimse Okoko, a foremost Ijaw leader and former President of Ijaw National Congress, INC, an umbrella body of Ijaw worldwide gets messier as the fiery University teacher calls the Governor’s administration as that laced in deceit and founded on lies.

Prof Okoko, in a press statement he personally signed said he was insulted by the threat by the Governor to probe his tenure as the Pro Chancellor of the Niger Delta University, NDU, alleging that he squandered the funds meant for the state University.

The University of Port Harcourt lecturer said he is miffed by “Seriake Dickson and his attack Dogs that he was ready to probe again the years I served as a Pro chancellor of the Niger Delta University and that I had plundered the resources of the institution during my tenure. Which resources if I may ask? What a stupid and mean lie. What an insult. To be sure, there were no resources to plunder in the first place.

Prof OKoko who recently dragged the Governor to Court for allegedly using the state resources to establish  African International University, a new private University in Toru Orua, his village, said  “Ordinarily, I would not have condescended to respond to Dickson and his attack Dogs but for his audacity to question my integrity, the only property I have.”

He stated further that Governor Dickson on assumption of duty as Governor during his first tenure, set up a panel to probe the activities of the Niger Delta University including the council, which  he chaired and found members not guilty of any misappropriation of funds or embezzlement and was in fact commended.

He challenged Governor Dickson to go ahead to waste his time once more, as he continues to govern without any purpose or aim.

According to the Ijaw leader,”It is an open secret in Bayelsa that Dickson and his government take pride in lying. Just a few examples would do for now. He claimed recently, that he had constructed some roads in NDU. It is a lie. No such roads were constructed. Similarly, he recently claimed through his attack dogs he had rehabilitated some roads in Yenagoa and its environs. Again it is a Lie. No such roads were rehabilitated by his government.

“Unfortunately for him, the roads were listed this time in the publications and the NDDC immediately refuted his claim stating that it was the NDDC that rehabilitated those roads! Dickson and his agents have so far (and they cannot ) not contested the NDDC’S claims. These are the kinds of lies Dickson and his attack dogs bask in. It has indeed become a disturbing pattern of telling lies.”

Prof Okoko added that, “It is senseless to say that he plundered the non-existent resources of the NDU. If he knows the University structure he could not have even as a night student, said so. I was not the Vice chancellor who is the administrative head of the University. In any case, the best years of the NDU were in fact during the six(6) years I served as the Pro chancellor along with the exemplary erudite and astute scholar and administrator Prof Chris Ikporukpo as the Vice chancellor and the highly competent and efficient Sir David Suowari as the Registrar of the University.”

The former Pro-Chancellor to NDU argued with very limited resources, the University had under him as Pro-chancellor, they were able to get virtually all the programs accredited only for Dickson to deconstruct our architecture when about eleven(11) programs lost their accreditation. And yet he declared (thunderously and in his usual bombastic and empty manner) Education as an emergency. What a charade.

Prof Okoko said it is on record that virtually all the structures in the new site in NDU is mostly funded by TETFUND and some of the few at the old site by the previous State government was started and completed during his tenure as Pro chancellor and absolutely free of any corrupt practices.

He remind Governor Dickson he has always remained incorruptible anywhere he worked and the Council he  headed generally consisted of men and women of integrity who were committed to selfess service and proud to have been part of the team.

He advised the Governor to face the case he has led against him in court on the dubious so called African International University and may also wish to remind him that his immunity as Governor does not preclude being investigated while in office.

Prof Okoko said “It only delays the real test of accountability when the EFCC takes over at the end of your three more painful years of guaranteed failure in erratic governance.”