 The governor of River State, Nyesum Ezebunwan-Wike, has urged Nigerians to be more careful in their choice of who they entrust with the responsibility of governing Nigeria. He said this was because the ruling APC federal government has set Nigeria 20 years backwards in just six and a half years of its misrule. The governor said it was only states controlled by the People's Democratic Party that are preoccupied with delivering the dividends of democracy. While referring to the APC as the other people, he stated that they are only fighting themselves about direct primaries and indirect primaries. He explained that it was wrong for most governments to forget to include the well-being of the most vulnerable in society in their programs. While joining us to discuss this is Ennefa Jodhwil. He is of the River's civil society organizations and we also are being joined by Darlingson while he is the Deputy Publicity Secretary-Elect ARC River State. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for joining us. Darlingson, can you hear me? Yes, it's always a pleasure. Great, great, great. Ennefa, I'm going to start with you. The governor is speaking about the APC-led government, obviously, pointing at the federal and state governments and saying that they've set the country 20 years backwards. And for you who works with civil society, I mean, just a few minutes ago we were talking about the protests that happened in the Northwest as a result of the killings and, of course, the terrorism that they're experiencing. But can we really say that the presidency and the APC-led government has really set Nigeria 20 years back? Very, very, very, the sentiment of the governor is a fact that the APC government is one of the worst governments in the history of Nigeria. However, such a comment shouldn't be coming from someone in the political party that is known to be as destructive as the APC. I am again separately, and there is no difference between, ideologically and philosophically speaking, there is no difference between the APC and the PDP. They are one of the same fact. Most of the principal actors are in the APC, we are all in the PDP. If the major players call them, they will be the squad leaders of this world. These are entrenched PDP people, you know, most of them, a good number of them, we are all members of the PDP. And of course we all know too that the 60 years of our PDP was equally the best of room, a system beyond our power project, yet there is darkness everywhere. We want to talk about the PDP government couldn't deliver on a portable water. We want to know about the government who couldn't industrialize this country. Ironhaw and steel is nowhere to be found. They couldn't even provide simple things like, simple, simple technology, IT and water view. So my point is that the PDP like competence are to abuse the APC because they are one of the same thing. And for the governor. And the governor sometimes sounds so sure of himself. He talks, sometimes the governor wants to act as an activist that he is not. For God's sake, we are talking about the governor who, you are talking about policies as it affects the downtrodden. We are talking about a governor who, no civil servant, reverse it has been promoted since he came into the state. That means that if you are in level six, since he came, you are remaining level six till death. Why your counter pass must have moved to level ten by now? But it remains so. We are talking about a governor who has not paid demo social teachers despite cuts on that. The industrial cuts and even the criminal appeal have stopped on that. A lawyer. And he has refused to obey the court and I have not paid him. So you are saying that governor has found himself in the case of a pot that is calling a kettle black. Is that what you are saying? That he should not be speaking on this issue. I am saying with good respect to him, I think he has just been a hypocrite. Since I level off hypocrisy. What are the industries he has created for poor people? We are speaking about a set of IT centers. The IT is the new oil in the world. What is he doing? Even the consumer processing factory that was created by a joint measure between the previous government and Shell that he came and completed. The government continued. As I speak to you, he has dissolved the bond of the consumer processing factory and it has been terminated ever since then. No industry, no employment, nothing, nothing. As such a governor is talking about, it is true that the FPC is a fair political party and this government is a fair one. But that should not be coming from a governor who is called a fair governor. All right. Let me go to Darlington. Mr. Morgul, the governor has, in his statement, he was being represented by his aide, Kelvin Ibiri. He did talk about the fact that the governors in the PDP are being preoccupied by delivering the dividends of democracy. So let's use Governor Wike here as, you know, as, let's see, the poster child of delivering dividends of democracy. What dividends of democracy is the governor referring to? Let's start with River State. Are there any dividends that we can point to? I mean, Anefa just literally crushed every single thing that the governor has said in that statement. But do you have anything to say to save the governor's reputation in this regard? Well, I wouldn't want to indulge myself in the seasonal brickbats. But the governor of River State always engages himself with the federal government of Nigeria. I wouldn't also want to entertain your audience just like the governor does on a daily basis. Free train tax payers money on national TV on a daily basis in the guise of launching or flagging off commissioning projects. I think that governments and government is a serious business. And when people talk about if we want to discuss serious business, then we should go down to roll up our sleeves and discuss very serious business. Now, we are talking about governance in Nigeria and governance in River State. And you wouldn't have someone who is, who has refused to be accountable to the people of River State. You wouldn't have such a person trying to paint or trying to brush the federal government in a very bad light, in a very bad manner. He is not a good example of what an opposition should be. Now this is a government that has run the state with a budget that is not seen in the public domain. How do you mean? And we have, the budget is nowhere to be found. The budget of River State in the past six years, the government of the state has operated a secret budget. But then I remember when I was in River State, the budget used to be published on a certain government website. So you could go and assess the different parts of that budget. And I remember. You are a journalist. I challenge you to direct us to that website where the budget of the state is in the past six years, since 2015 when it took over. Now we are saying that these are not meritorex. This is not trying to play to the gallery or entertain your audience. We are talking about facts. You cannot, in any sane democracy, claim that you are running a people's government or you are accountable to the people whereas the budget expenditure, which is a public document and we should be a public document, is nowhere to be found. You are not accountable to the people. You award control based on impulse. I'm sorry. Again, I want to challenge you. When you say that the governor is not accountable to the people, in what way are you saying? Because I don't understand. What is the number one test of accountability? You are a member of the opposition in the state. And the opposition in the state seems to be a public document. Can I ask a question? You are a member of the APC in River State. And the opposition in River State seems to be a worthy opposition. What has the APC done in challenging the government to produce this so-called secret budget or be accountable to the people? Because it's not enough for you to talk about it. What are you doing to get the government to be on their toes? That's what the opposition is supposed to do, right? Well, what else should a credible opposition do other than calling out the government of the day, talking to the people of the state about the dangers of we having a government that runs and operates a secret budget? There's nowhere in the world where, as you mean, the federal government was operating a secret budget as we have in River State. I bet you that the whole country would have been on fire because you cannot have expenses made based on knee-jerk reactions. You cannot have, on a daily basis, contracts being awarded that are not captured in the budget for people to be able to verify, for people to be able to imack this project, for people to cross-check and examine the cost implications of this budget vis-à-vis the standard cost of these items in the market or in the open market, as the case may be. So when once you have deficiency with your budgeting system, I dare say that there is every reason for you to believe that there is, or there are, acts of corruption. Because the number one point of corruption in this country is in the budget. But Anafa just said something about the fact that, hold on, Anafa George will just say something about, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, one second, let me just put this here. Anafa George will just put the APC on the same level with the PDP. In fact, he said that they're one and the same. It's just the different colors or the different logos on their flags that differentiate them, but they're one and the same. So you're on the other side pointing fingers at the government on its level of irresponsibility according to you, while Anafa on the other hand is saying that you're as irresponsible as the government of the day. In other words, if you were there, in his words, you'd probably do the same thing. What do you have to say about that? Well, those are his opinions and his entitled to his opinions. Opinions are free, but the facts that are on the ground are sacred and the facts are actually the direct opposite of what Anafa just said. And if you want to correlate what is happening at the federal level with what is happening in reverse, there is no basis for comparisons. Really? Number one, we do have an open budget for the federation, a budget which is subjected to public debates by the National Assembly, which is subjected to pandering by the federal committees at the level of the National Assembly. Again, a system in reverse is where a document is brought up, a summary of expenses is brought up, or what I call a statement of an incident. Well, we have to go. We have to go. I apologize. Time is not on our side, but I want to say thank you. Anafa Jardrula, I want to say thank you. Thank you so much for speaking with us. Unfortunately, we cannot continue this conversation, but I appreciate your thoughts. Thank you. Well, thank you all for staying with us. Now Nigerians tell us the version of Nigeria that they prefer, the Nigeria of today or Nigeria of 20 years ago. Well, my name is Mary Anakun. I will see you tomorrow as we return with plus politics. Have a good evening. Of course, 20 years ago, things were easy and things were better. But then now, I prefer the new Nigeria because there are a lot of innovations. Without the government, people are starting to grow with what they have, with what they can offer to society. So I believe that the new Nigeria, the Nigeria of this 21st century is a kind of, is a growing society. Yes. And that's something that will put Nigeria in the forefront in the eyes of the other parts of the world. To me, 20 years ago is better to what we have now. Like 20 years ago, we don't have things like street courtesies. We don't have, you can proudly eat 3 square meals a day, 20 years ago. And even like Christmas now, Christmas is in the air. You can't even feel it, that there's Christmas in the air. So Nigeria of 20 years with me, I would like, if I can reverse the end of time, I would like to go back 20 years, honestly. I think I prefer, I prefer now. Because there are some civilizations that's in the country already. You understand what I'm saying? Like 20 years ago, there was no Instagram, there was no other stuff, all those stuffs, you know. So I would say now is better than 20 years ago. I would say we have gone some steps further than I'm sure we had ever imagined. But we have a whole lot to do. And I would say we are still following shots of expectations. We have faith that things will get better in the next 20 years.