Governor Wike Thanks President Buhari for Law School campus

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has expressed his appreciation to President Muhammadu Buhari for the Federal Government’s approval of the Port Harcourt Campus of the Nigerian Law School.

Mr Wike who was speaking on his experience in getting the approval of the Federal Government of Nigeria for the Rivers State Government to build the new Campus of the Nigerian Law School in Port Harcourt was a pleasant surprise for him.

He traced the history of the new campus named after a former prominent Rivers State born Lawyer, Nabo Graham Douglas, from the moment he attended the Call to Bar ceremony of the Nigerian Law School in Abuja to when he spoke to the Director General and how the Rivers State Government and people were initially played out of getting the Law School when it was taken to Bayelsa State.

He said the Director General of the Nigerian Law School gave him hope about the future of Nigeria.

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“Unfortunately, they didn’t know that Odili will have another children that can take the entire crowd, so it will be paining them more that this occasion is still going on. I can assure you I am in charge. When I used to be chairman of local government, any activity, his excellency governor of Rivers State will say make sure, Make sure that you are ready and i will say we are ready these days, i don’t know what the chairmen are doing. Maybe they are not seeing the people well and that’s forgiven.

Your Excellency, mine would be to say thank you to a lot of people. I will give you the history of how this law school started. So many people may not know, and I used to lose faith in Nigeria that we don’t have a country. Again, everything is about ethnicity, everything is about where you come from. But I was given hope by the Director General of Nadia Law School that there are still people who believe in the unity of this country, who believe that it is not because I’m from so so place and therefore anything that comes must go to that area.

Sometimes ago, I attended a call to bar in Abuja. While the body of benchers were filling into the hall, I looked at the surroundings of the building, I said how can we have this as the law school and especially the headquarters of Nigerian Law School?

This is unacceptable. And then I asked somebody to call me the Director General Law School. I don’t know him. So he came, this is our law school. What has happened? He said well, they are managing what they have, they have no funds, I said no how can i support to make sure that at least this is my constituency.

If I leave tomorrow as governor and then I’m criticizing, people will ask me when you were there, what was your contribution to make sure we have a better education. So I told him, okay, what I’m going to do, I’m going to support one of these two buildings.

He said no, take the money to Bayelsa State that he prefers the money to be used in Bayelsa State at where you have the Nigerian Law School. And I remember when I was chief of staff, this law school that was in Bayelsa State was supposed to come to Rivers State. But then the government at that time said no, they were not willing to have law school campus in Port Harcourt. So I told the DG Okay, I will come to Bayelsa and see for myself. We went to Bayelsa State? I can tell you even your worst slave, you will never allow your worst slave to go to that school. So bad, you will never pray to allow a slave to go to that school.

And I was touched when we got to that place and I said okay, what do we do? He said there immediate problems now is with no accommodation, no auditorium for them to do any activity. I said Rivers State will contribute to building 900 space of a hostel and then 1500 capacity multipurpose auditorium.

Then I told him to go and design it. They designed it, they brought it at the cost of 5. something billion, I said okay, we had thorough process and we awarded the contracts. That gave me a problem. It gave me a problem. I came to show that we have money it gave me a political problem everything some people say oh, Mr. Donatus, he doesn’t know what to do with money. So one of the days we choose that was last year something May June and we are going for a foundation ceremony with the former Chairman of the NBA, Olumide Akpata, and the chairman of the Council of Legal Education so we are discussing the post and they are said look, we have this kind of idea about expanding capacity why not?

If you will agree they were willing to view and hand over if you are going to set a campus of the Nigerian Law School, So they encouraged me that I should mention it during my speech, this is a school in the center in the South South ordinarily it should have been impossible.

What if tomorrow your son or your daughter is posted to that school and look at the environment how will you feel? They say, well, it’s not why we feel that kind of point. I said, well, I made my commitment”.