Immediate past governor of Delta state, Emmanuel Uduaghan has accused the former the Manager, government relations, Shell Petroleum Development Company, (SPDC), Charles Akeni of blackmailing him while in office in an alleged attempt to defraud the state government few years ago.
Mr. Akeni had lamented and criticised the inability and failure of former governor Uduaghan to execute certain project ideas put forward to him while in office to move the state forward.
“The year was 2006. During the independence celebrations of that year I invited El’ Rufai to Warri to be SPDC’s guest lecturer and for me to tell him to let the FG open Warri Port. Then I was Vice President of Warri Chambers of Commerce, WACCIMA. He came to Warri. Uduaghan who was the SSG then asked me to bring him to Asaba to see Ibori the Governor then.
“I sent him to Asaba with a helicopter. He came back to Warri in the evening with one Ofuani. Three of us went into a meeting about the Warri Port. I said the Port must be resuscitated and a dual carriage road built from Ughelli to Asaba to evacuate imports to Onitsha. I said the contract should be awarded to 6 contractors so that it can be finished in one construction season.
“As soon as El’ Rufai agreed to this, Ofuani interjected and said a cargo airport should also be built at Asaba to serve air imports. El’Rufai also agreed. We shook hands.
Based on all this I thought I could encourage a Warri boy to be the next Governor, which I did. Uduaghan became Governor. He promptly awarded both jobs to whom I knew not.
“Now look. Both projects are utter failures. 9 good years gone. Nine times the money gone. What, for goodness sake, is wrong with us? No, the Order Must Change in Delta State. Please. A State that is supposed to be the pace setter to others is the one trailing at the rear. What a pity!!!!!
The Order Must Change in Delta State.
In comes the COALITION FOR A NEW ORDER IN DELTA STATE (CNOD). Let’s join CNOD and help change the State for the better. It is possible.”, Akeni wrote.
Reacting to Akeni’s statement, Clement Ofuani who was then the Commissioner for Economic Planning to former governor James Ibori and Economic Adviser to former governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, described the statement as shocking.
“It is shocking that Charles Akeni would describe me as ‘one Ofuani.’ To begin with, I was the Commissioner for Economic Planning at the time in 2006. Following the successful state visit of President Olusegun Obasanjo to Delta State, he wrote to Governor James Ibori commending him for his accomplishments and expressed his concern about the unemployment situation in the Warri area and expressed a desire for collaborative effort between the Federal and the State to tackle it.
“He further suggested setting up a committee made up of selected members of his cabinet and members of governor Ibori’s cabinet. In response to the President’s suggestion, governor Ibori appointed me to head the Delta team on the committee. The federal team included Dr. Okonjo-Iweala as head and El Rufai as member. El Rufai came to Delta to enable us have a committee meeting but unknown to us, he also had an engagement with Shell which obviously facilitated his travel logistics.
“Contrary to the insinuation by Akeni that Dr. Uduaghan lobbied for El Rufai to come to Asaba to meet with Ibori, El Rufai’s official mission was indeed to meet with the Delta team. I didn’t know Akeni at that time and have no recollection of being in a meeting with him. The meeting I had with El Rufai was at Peter King Guest house in Warri and I recall that there were a couple of people introduced to me as Shell staff but I cannot remember their specific names.
“The first thing that struck me was the way El Rufai carried on as ‘Mr. Know all’ and the audience seemed enthralled until I interjected to correct a lot of his misconceptions. In fairness to El Rufai, he admitted that he didn’t know a lot of the information I provided and said that we as a government were not making the information available but I corrected him that the information was there alright only that they chose what to read or accept.
“In the course of our discussions, we had to x-ray the youth unemployment in the Warri area and concluded that it was in large part the result of deliberate Federal policies that led to the underutilization of Warri Port which used to be a major player in the employment creation value chain, as well as the Delta Steel Complex Aladja. Our thinking was on how to work with the Federal to reverse the unwholesome policies but El Rufai was more interested in controlling Delta State Government appropriations even when he was clearly ignorant of the State’s circumstances.
“This is not the first time that Akeni has chosen to speak about me with venom and outright lies. Obviously, he cannot get over the fact that as Economic Adviser to Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, I rejected his proposal for the State to fund his pet modular refinery project in which he would be an owner with only sweat capital while the financial and operating risks would be borne by the Delta taxpayers.
“Akeni told me at that time that they had made so much progress with Akwa Ibom in developing a modular refinery but I told him that Delta State’s views were obviously different from Akwa Ibom. Surprisingly, over a decade after, Akeni’s Akwa Ibom refinery is yet to produce a litre of gasoline. That is the kind of CHANGE, Akeni wants to bring to Deltans. I assure him that after the APC debacle of 2015 to date, nobody is buying their CHANGE ever again. Chief Clement T. Ofuani April 16, 2018.”, Ofuani said.
Also reacting, immediate past governor of Delta state Emmanuel Uduaghan noted that Ofuani has responded “to the tissue of lies put out by Chief Akeni, a former staff of Shell PDC, who tried to blackmail me because he was blocked from defrauding the Delta state government. I did not respond because I will be putting out too much about Chief Akeni. Chief Ofuani has responded to him which I believe is enough for now.”
