The former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dakuku Peterside, on Saturday blasted the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, for allegedly owing pensioners in the state.
Some retired public officers in Rivers recently protested the non-payment of their gratuities and pension arrears by the state government.
Peterside, who reacted to the development in a statement in Port Harcourt, said Wike should be ashamed of his administration’s inability to pay the pensioners in the state.
He described the non-payment of the pension arrears by the government as “callous and inhuman.”
He said: “Governor Wike should be ashamed that people who are old enough to be his father have been abandoned to their fate, with many already dead without getting their due benefits.
There is no greater wickedness than this, in fact, his action is callous and inhuman. Here is a man who has received hundreds of billions of naira in both federal allocation and internally generated revenue.
Since 2015, Wike has not promoted a single civil servant, neither has he employed anyone. A brick-and-mortar governor does not fit into proactive governance anchored on human capital development, which is the main driving force of economic wellbeing worldwide.
“Rivers youths have benefitted nothing under Wike. He prefers to hire them for political rallies rather than create platforms through which they can contribute to the economic prosperity of the state.”
