The immediate past governor of Rivers State and former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi has described the building and commissioning of Law School in Rivers State by his successor, Governor Nyesom Wike as pointless.
Amaechi, who made the statement following a comment by Wike during the commissioning of the Law School project on Friday, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, stressed that it’s not an achievement to celebrate law school while Primary and Secondary schools in the State are in shambles and teachers are not being paid.
AbaCityBlog reports that Wike had invited President Muhammadu Buhari to commission the N17 billion naira Law School project.
Speaking during the commissioning of the Dr. Nabo Graham Douglas Campus of the Nigerian Law School in Rumueme, Port Harcourt, Gov Wike said his predecessor, Rotimi Amaechi denied a proposition to establish a law school in Rivers State.
Wike who served under Amaechi as Chief of Staff between 2007 and 2011, said commissioning of the project is part of his week-long unveiling of legacy projects with six months to the end of his two-term administration.
“I remember when I was chief of staff, the law school that is in Bayelsa today was to come to Rivers but the government at that time said no. They were not willing to have a law school campus in Port Harcourt,” Wike said.
Responding to Wike’s comment, Amaechi admitted refusing to fund the establishment of Law School in the state while he held sway as governor of Rivers State.
The former minister who spoke to Vanguard faulted his successor for commiting the state’s money to the project which he described as federal government’s responsibility.
“Yes, it’s true. I asked them when they brought the proposal, I asked them, would the federal government fund it? and they said no. I’m not father Christmas. I said primary schools in Rivers State are not functioning, secondary schools are not functioning and I would go and build a law school for government as big as the federal government?
”I told them that I have a land and here’s the land and they said no. So,I don’t know why that is an achievement for a man whose primary and secondary schools are not functioning and teachers are not paid.
”By the time I did audit of education in Rivers State, we trained 90,000 teachers and I employed 13,200. So that money that he used in building law school would have been used to employ more teachers.
”So that money that you are investing in a big federal government’s project you should have used it to employ more teachers, build more schools and create more jobs for our people. Rivers State has the highest number of unemployment,” he added.
