Former President Goodluck Jonathan has blasted the recurring trend among governors who neglect or discontinue projects initiated by their predecessors. He recently described it as a major source of waste in governance across Nigeria.
Speaking during the commissioning of the Best Western Plus Hotel in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, GEJ said that several projects he began while serving as governor of Bayelsa before becoming Vice President in 2007 were completely abandoned by subsequent administrations.
According to him, his administration had approved contracts for the construction of a five-star Tower Hotel and two three-star hotels to improve accommodation and tourism in the state, only for it to be discontinued when his tenure ended.
He stated that the completion of those projects would have positioned Yenagoa as a key destination for investors and visitors.
“As a first elected deputy governor of Bayelsa State, the governor then, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, started hosting African Movie Awards ceremonies that people from America, South Africa and others were coming; actors and actresses.
It was a world event: you know all these celebrities, they live a sort of fantastic life, and in the first edition hosted, most of the external guests stayed in Port Harcourt because there was no hotel that you could see in Bayelsa State.
The idea of a state encouraging tourism is for tourists to spend their foreign money in the state to stimulate the local economy, so if the state is to spend on the programme that brings people all over the world and then the money will be spent in other states, that is a negative investment.
So when I took over as the governor, then there were some small, small hotels in Yenagoa, I said we cannot build a three-star hotel overnight, let us give some little money for our hotels to improve, but they were supposed to pay back, and we gave money up to N10, N15 million to a number of people, but because I left, nobody returned any money to anybody.
So when we wanted to host again, we quickly awarded contracts to build three hotels, the Tower Hotel and two three-star hotels. If they had done these three hotels, by now, visitors coming to Bayelsa State would have had a comfortable place to stay, but somehow, when I left, even people I mobilised, we didn’t see what they had done,” he said.
Jonathan further noted that political leaders must show a willingness to continue from where their predecessors stop, especially when taking a different direction will hinder development.
He concluded by stressing the need to embrace continuity in governance to prevent wastage of key resources.
“That is the problem of government, when a governor leaves, the next governor doesn’t want to follow up, most of that money spent will go,” he added.
