By Timi Zuofa
Mr. Moses Teibowei is the Honourable Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Bayelsa State. As Bayelsa State celebrated 26th anniversary of its creation, in this recent chat with the Technical Assistant to the Governor on Culture, he opens up on how the prosperity governor, has provided huge infrastructural projects for the state.
Excerpts..
Please introduce yourself sir.
Thank you very much. l am estate surveyor and valuer. Moses Teibowei, Honourable Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Bayelsa State.
Bayelsa state is 26 today. How has it been so far?
Okay, Bayelsa state is 26 now and I can speak as, one, a Bayelsan, two as somebody that supported our elders in terms of attending meetings , giving advice also to ensure that the state was created and l also came quite early to Yenagoa the state capital.
And moreso, Yenagoa local government happens to be my own local government , before the creation of Bayelsa state and so l have a good knowledge of the state. l also have a good knowledge of Yenagoa, the state capital.
And so, all l can tell you in summary is that we as a people have been able to achieve something significant. Something significant in the sense that if you had been to Yenagoa, when it was created in 1996, and you come back to Yenagoa today , you would know that we have improved significantly.
We are not yet where we are supposed to be, but l would say that we are making progress. My first visit to Yenagoa was in 1981, when l came to Yenagoa representing my school for a football competition, l came back to Yenagoa before the creation of Bayelsa State and when Yenagoa was created l moved with my family to Yenagoa in 1997. The road leading to Yenagoa itself was very bad.
A narrow road with grasses all over , but Mbiama Yenagoa road is a dual carriage way, when the state was created, there wasn’t even enough houses for people to live in. When l came to Yenagoa in 1997, where you need to toilet was even bush or the water front.
That was how bad it was . Not enough office spaces, l came as a civil servant when l was transferred to the ministry of lands and housing, the entire department of workers were sharing one 12 by 12 room in the local government. But today, look at the Secretariat we have. Even if we are not there yet, l would say that we have made some reasonable progress.
Kindly speak from the government’s direction on policy, where you think Bayelsa as a state should be in the next 10 years.
In the next 10 years , I strongly believe that if we use the resources available to us prudently, as it is being done in this administration, there would be a massive turnaround.
Massive turnaround in the sense that the prosperity administration is about completing the Sagbama-Ekeremor road, the same way the prosperity administration will complete the central senatorial road which leads to Oporoma. The same way the island flank, the Nembe Brass road will be completed, and when that project is completed, you would have easy access to the Atlantic ocean, quite a lot will happen.
Subsequent government that will come on board, will no longer spend huge sums of money in terms of road infrastructure to these local government headquarters.
So, a whole chunk of money would now be ploughed back into Yenagoa and several other things would be done, in terms of creating jobs for the youths . This administration is working seriously on developing the industrial layout, if that is done, subsequent administration will only come and site industries that would create employment, so l see a better, a brighter future for Bayelsa State in the next 10 years.
As a true Bayelsan and a leader in the state, please talk briefly about Bayelsan culture and why you think it is different or unique from any other culture in Nigeria.
Well, l want to say that l am not a culture man but let me use this opportunity to appreciate our governor, Senator Henry Seriake Dickson, and the present Governor Senator Douye Diri, for the former governor, he came up with a policy that all civil servants and public servants should dress in our own unique way every Friday. And so, for a woman , even as a civil servant, you must tie your double wrapper with a blouse and head gear,. For a man, you have to dress in our own, peculiar Ijaw dressing.
Thepresent administration came on board continued with it and even introduced a new dimension to it. For exco members, every Wednesday, at Exco meetings we all must appear in our traditional attires and we all look great and in them. That is to say that we are a unique set of people, we have a culture, we respect our culture. I have just talked about dressing. Traditional wrestling is one area that to me, is dieing, we need to revive it, we need to encourage it. During flood seasons like this when we were Younger, growing up in the village, like in my community. One side would go and wrestle with the other side on a market day. The next market day this other side would go to the other and wrestle.
Then between communities, we enter into big bouts, go to other communities and wrestle. It was fun for young men. It is part of our tradition, we need to encourage it. We have our own music too which is also peculiar. We need to promote it it. So, yes we have a culture , we need to ensure that our culture does not die, we must promote and preserve it.
As a follow up question, if you have the opportunity to be in the midst of international tourists, what do you think you would say in order to convince them to come to Bayelsa and invest.
Well , for now, I am here working and our intention is to link up to the ocean by getting road to Brass which is by the Atlantic ocean. If we are able to get to Agee, it is also to the Atlantic ocean. And tourists, what do they want to do?
They know that if we develop our tourist potentials , it will attract a lot of people to come. I had the privilege of traveling to Zanzibar and the place was like Brass, it was like Oluama.
But l travelled with a friend of from here to Zanzibar , you wont believe that we even went to the Indian ocean to swim. We swam in the Indian ocean, clean water.
When we linked up to the Atlantic ocean, automatically, we would have invited tourists to come. We can partner with reasonable , genuine investors to set up hotel businesses, fishing businesses and more that would attract others to also come to our state for tourism purposes. Just this morning l was talking to somebody and l mentioned the issue of Obudu cattle ranch and Tinapa and they said the places have collapsed I also had the opportunity of going to Obudu cattle ranch and there’s a cable cab that took me from down to the ranch but l was told that it is no longer functioning, so you have to drive to the ranch and come down.
We need to change our mindset on how we do things ,on how we do business, the culture if maintainance must be kept. It is only through that genuine, committed spirit that we would be able to get it right. Somebody will come up with an jdea and will do that idea and the next person that would come will complete it.
That is why l started by appreciating the former governor for what he did with culture of our way of dressing. His Excellency Sen Douye Diri continuing with it by even taking it to Exco members to dress traditionally . Also on Wednesdays , so from one day of wearing Ijaw dress, now it has turned to two days for us and that is continuity in government.
So l will tell people, tourists to come and invest in Bayelsa State, more especially, when we are linked to the Atlantic ocean. The way we left Bayelsa to Zanzibar, others will also leave their places to come to Brass and other beautiful scenery of attraction in our state.
Bayelsa is now a building site, with projects going on in every senatorial zones, kindly tell us about the government pumping projects into all these zones and the impact of projects in respect to economic development,
It is good for the public to know what the prosperity administration is doing in all the three senatorial districts. Let me start with the West, we inherited the Sagbama-Ekeremor road, we have been able to work on five brigdes and then it is segmented into two sections, section one is 28km, section two is 14km.
Having completed the bridges, we also worked on sandsmen civilization, stonebase and we have also completed the 28 km asphalting, so asphalt has reached Aleibiri , which is a community in Ekeremor local government area .
We are believing that by the end of December, we will be able to complete the 14 km. Apart from that, we are also doing some internal roads in Ayamasa, in Aleibiri, we have also awarded one in Sagbama and Angiama, and we also built a pavilion on Torundoro. We are also about starting work on the road to Beautiful gate from Ekeremor town.
So, we have lot going on there. That is about the west. Coming to the central , because the state capital is in central , l won’t be able to even count all of them. We have the Glory drive phase two, which is 10.2 km dual carriage way with walkways and median and street lights that would be provided .
We have a 22 km Igbokene-AIT outer ring road. We have completed section one which is 4.2 km commissioned. Section one Igbokene to Okaki already completed and commissioned. Section 4 is from Imiringin to AIT, it is as good as completed. It will be commissioned very soon. Currently, the contractor is working on section 2 and 3 which is from Okaki to imiringi, It is on going .
We have spent about N19 billion on that project. For the Sagbama project we have spent over N21 billion. The same central senatorial road, let me talk about the Yenagoa-Oporoma road. We just finished launching the bims at Agobiri axis which is accross Silva river, we started from there brigde, we started from Egeibiri and already at Angiama.
The bridge to cross to Oporoma is already on going , N4.48 billion has been paid on the bridge. We have spent over N12 billion from Egeibiri and we are already at Angiama, work is on going. Within the central senatorial district , we have done over 28 internal roads. Initially, we announced 20, we have added additional 9 to it. There are other projects on going that are being supervised in this ministry.
The transport terminal is on going, the Judges’ Quarters is on going , the Isaac Boro road was not completed before the Prosperity and administration came in board , we at the point of completing the bigde to Etegwe-Tombia roundabout. That is about the central. Is almost completed.