By Richards Adeniyi
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike has accused the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) of declining on a promise it was said to have made with regards to the dredging of Bonny channel to allow bigger vessels visit seaports in the state.
Rivers State is the host of two major seaports owed by the Federal Government. The two ports are located in Port Harcourt and Onne.
It is however not clear when NPA made the promise to dredge the Bonny channel as claimed by the governor.
“What is the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) doing? Rivers government should now be the one to dredge the channels and NPA is busy collecting levies and revenues from marine operators?
“Why should that be? You don’t expect me to dredge waterways for NPA to be collecting all the money. You are building a new port in Lagos, but those in Rivers you rendered idle; grounded with no development attention,” Wike said while speaking recently during the maiden delivery of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) to downstream investor, Stockgap Terminal by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) in Bonny.
The governor begged the Federal Government “to forgive Rivers State people” for any wrong they did to warrant neglect by the central authority.
“Even if Rivers has done anything wrong, please we are begging; forgive us. But I don’t think we have done anything wrong as Rivers people. Rivers is the better place to invest. We continue to support every investment brought here and the gratitude we get is that key investors are embracing our confidence to invest here while some people are de-marketing the state,” he said.