IPNEWS: ThisDay rates Bayelsa Governor Dickson worst performing governor in the Niger Delta ThisDay rates Bayelsa Governor Dickson worst performing governor in the Niger Delta

Of all the Governors of the four major oil producing States in the
Niger Delta that receive the 13 percent derivation, Bayelsa State
Governor Seriake Dickson has been rated the worst performing by a
leading national newspaper, This Day. These States are Akwa Ibom,
Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers.

In its midterm assessment of the governors, to mark the 2017 Democracy
Day, ThisDay rated the other three governors very highly while
Dickson was awarded the yellow marker, an insignia for pale and opaque
performance.

Dickson’s lacklustre performance recently came to the fore following
his recent criticism of former President Goodluck Jonathan who he
accused of having disappointed the Ijaw nation. Critics and some Niger
Delta ethnic association have ever since descended on him, accusing
him of playing dirty local politics, profligacy, wastefulness and
unnecessary grandstanding, while the good people of Bayelsa continue
to suffer in silence from Dickson’s lack of vision and poor
governance.

In painting a picture of awful performance This Day described Bayelsa
as a laggard and lamented that “Dickson has struggled to pay the
salaries of workers and pensioners” despite the relatively huge
earnings from the federal allocations.

Bayelsa really remains the only state out of these big four high
earning states that isowing workers salaries. It is also true that
while neighbouring states like Rivers are commissioning new projects
everyday, Dickson’s Bayelsa has nothing to showcase.

In the rating of the 36 State Governors by This Day tagged ‘Street
Lights, Street Views’ published Monday the governors of the three
states of Delta, Rivers and Akwa Ibom performed excellently well and
were described as governors “with clear vision and promising start.”
In the case of Dickson, he was described in the report as a governor
with “no clear vision.”

The report said further said of Governor Dickson and his Bayelsa
State: “Of the four major oil producing states in the country, Bayelsa
continues to remain the laggard in all spheres of development.”

Meanwhile the Save Ijaw Nation has asked the Governor of Bayelsa
State, Honorable Henry Seraike Dickson, to give account of how He has
managed the huge allocations, accrued to the State under the five
years of his administration in the State.

The group said the Governor Dickson’s administration have shown a
total lack of capacity and integrity to judiciously utilize state
funds, as the government has failed to show sufficient performance
commensurate with the several funds received by the state as monthly
allocation from the federal government.

“Ordinarily, if the performance of the present administration were
anything to go with identifiable physical infrastructure, some of us
would not have raised any concern about the manner in which the state
is being currently ran”, the group said in their statement which was
signed by the Bayelse State Coordinator, Comrade Otobo Osborn

“But we are worried that a government with a track record of
profligacy, ineptitude and visionlessness, has continued to plunge
Bayelsa funds down the drain again without noticeable and meaningful
development in the state.”

The group challenged Governor Dickson to tell the people of Bayelsa
state what it has done with the billions of monthly revenue from the
federation account and those accruable to the local government
councils in the last five years.

“We are talking about a total sum of money accruable to the state in
five years and there is absolutely nothing to show for it. When you
add internally generated revenue, the total accruable revenue will be
unimaginable. What exactly is the relative social and physical
infrastructural achievement of the Dickson’s administration?

Despite the huge revenue of the government, the statement continue