My Lord and Chairman of the Commission & members.

Let me thank you immensely for accepting to create this opportunity for me to respond to the litany of vile and unfounded, baseless and devilishly false allegations that have been sponsored against the government that I headed by the Grace of God, from 1999-2007, and against my person and character.

My Lord I have chosen to come and respond because of my personal respect for you and members of your commission and also because, as the saying goes, “evil triumphs when good men keep quiet”.

I have watched with amazement, disdain and pity, the melodrama that has emerged from the public hearings since 02-06-2008. It is absolutely clear, My Lord, that this Commission was set up for only one reason “to attempt to smear the image and hard-earned good name and reputation of Dr Peter Odili, discredit his Government and the good works he did as Governor.” Clearly, no truth and reconciliation was intended by those who conceived the idea of this commission, and given the trend so far, I dare say that no reconciliation can be achieved.

It is regrettable that Your Lordship has been persuaded to head this commission.

Before I go any further, let me make the following declarations.

•  That I have never been a member of any secret society or cult group in all me life

•  That I will never belong to any secret society or cult group

•  That I have never sponsored or encouraged any one to belong to any cult group

•  That I have never sponsored or encouraged any cult group.

•  That I have never encouraged or sponsored violence in any form against any human being or community all my life

•  That I have never owned a thug or group of thugs

•  That I have never conspired with anyone or with any group of people to do harm to anyone or any community.

•  That I have never and will never be part of any plot or conspiracy to take human life, because I know and fear God.

•  That I challenge ANYONE who disputes any of the above statements to come publicly forward with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, not I “think”, or I “believe” or I “hear” .

•  At no time between 1999 and 2007 did Governor Amaechi advise me against the use of cult groups for elections, because there was no need for such advice.

•  I further declare that if any of these statements is untrue, I invite God to visit me with clear and appropriate punishment.

My Lord, having stated the above, permit me to give some background information about me and my political life.

•  I am 59 years old and I am a Medical Doctor. I have been a Roman Catholic Knight of the Pope. I have been happily married to Justice Mary Odili for the past 31 years and our marriage has been blessed with four lovely children and two grandchildren and two wonderful sons-in-law. I started my Private Practice in 1980 in a rented premises, and by December 1982 moved into my own permanent structure. By the special Grace of God I ran the most successful private medical practice in Port Harcourt and Rivers State between 1985 and 1990 and earned my first million naira by 1985 . I have lived an honest and contented life, guided by the fear of God and love/kindness to my neighbor.

•  I come from NDONI – one of the 19 ethnic nationalities in Rivers State .

My Lord, my concept of political and public office was founded on service and true democratic principles of team work and respect for local sensibilities. This informed my setting up of the Restoration Team and the Apex Team which included 16 people representing some of the various ethnic groups. This group included the present Governor, the immediate past governor, the current state chairman of the PDP, the immediate past chairman of the PDP, to name a few of them.

Members of the group took charge and responsibility for the organization and mobilization of their areas. My role was to coordinate and support them to ensure our success. I rarely interfered with their decisions in their areas unless there was crisis or serious complaints.

This was the structure that we used in 1998/1999 to win the Governorship election in a most keenly contested race with an opponent who was the immediate past SSG. I had no thug and needed none and we won.

I assumed office on 29/05/1999 and met a state that was polarized along ethnic lines, with internecine, and inter communal crises almost everywhere. Some examples include:

•  Okrika – Eleme crises

•  Ogoni – Andoni crises

•  Ogoni – Internal crises

•  Okrika Internal crises

•  Tombia Internal crises

•  Emohua internal crises

I met a state that was embroiled with insecurity of life and property. We confronted these security challenges as well as other developmental challenges.

I deployed the strategy of the rule of law and support for the security agencies to deal with the communal crises and insecurity . The results were phenomenal. We dealt with Infrastructural development, human resources development and empowerment of our youths and women.

We initiated novel Health programmes that enhanced the health status and the quality of life of our people.

We introduced free education at primary and junior and senior secondary levels and scholarships at tertiary levels. By April 2007, over 450 Rivers children were on scholarship abroad.

We supported the Spiritual wellbeing of our people by supporting the churches, mosques and faith based organizations. I dare say we had the highest number of state sponsored pilgrims of both Christians and Moslems in Nigeria .

By 2002, our state was declared the best state in good governance and performance by a Federal Government sponsored Nigeria Union of Journalists evaluation of all states in the Federation. I was given the award of the Golden Governor of the Federation. The trophy was presented by to me at a public ceremony in Abuja by the then Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

Our state Power programme remains to date the best effort by any Government between 1999 and 2007. Never before have Rivers men and women – especially the poor in rural communities been as touched, empowered and assisted as was witnessed between 1999 and 2007.

GENEROSITY/GRATITUDE
Generosity my Lord is a virtue and gift from God and I am proud and grateful to God for that gift. Not many have it and certainly not many in authority have it. I created legitimate instrument of government to enable me assist as many of our people and Nigerians as possible. I ensured that donations, grants and aids to individuals, churches, mosques, NGOs & Corporate agencies were provided for in appropriation laws every Fiscal year. I am happy and satisfied with what we achieved through this novel approach to governance and charity. I was criticized and called names – DONATUS for example. I accept the appellation proudly. I did maximum good to all who sought our help at their most needful moments. We saved lives and we touched families. My Lord, no stratum of society was excluded from the list of beneficiaries, but gratitude you know does not come easily and not many have it.

If you are not generous, no matter what you have or own, you will not give out. Giving is from the heart and not the size of your pocket. The other point to note is that you can not be generous and GREEDY at the same time. But the greedy imagine that the generous has accumulated so much and that is why he gives – NO! But then people judge others from their own standards. If you can steal, you imagine that others too can steal.

My Lord we allowed the opposition freedom to criticize our government and never suppressed or used the instrument of government to coerce our opponents. We had no need to because our success in government had made us so popular that what was opposition by 1999 had literally collapsed and melted away. By the 2003 elections, my opponent in 1999 had become one of my foremost supporters and campaigner. So it was absolutely unnecessary for me as a popular Governor going for a re-election with a track record of achievements to arm our youths to help me win election in 2003. I did not need to in 1999, and could not have needed it in 2003. The truth is that there was no credible opposition in Rivers state by 2003 election.

We naturally won the 2003 elections most effortlessly to the best of my knowledge. A detailed analysis of the results will show clearly that the parts of the state prone to cult/militant activities were not critical for our electoral victory and so the need for the support of cult/militant groups did not exist.

The 2004 Violence

I had taken off on a well deserved vacation out of the state – the first- with my family after 4 (four) years in office. Two days after arriving Johannesburg I got a call from Port Harcourt that there was a cult attack in the city, by cultists who came in a number of boats and confronted the police at Marine Base, chasing residents and innocent citizens on their way to church on a Sunday morning. I immediately suspended my vacation and raced back to Port Harcourt .

After some days, the situation was brought back under control in Port Harcourt but isolated skirmishes continued in the outskirts in the creeks. We commended the police and military for their efforts.

Late afternoon on the 1 st of October 2004, I got a call from the Presidency to come urgently. When I got to the Villa, I met a group of young men apparently from my state, who had been brought to the Villa for the purpose of making Peace and stopping the violence in the State. They were said to be representing ATEKE & ASARIs groups and both men (Asari and Ateke) were also present. That was my first time of sitting with Ateke in my life. That meeting led to the limited amnesty by the Federal Government of Nigeria and the setting up of two committees – one for social welfare and another for Arms Recovery. I was privileged to chair the arms recovery committee which included an Army General, an Air Vice Marshal, a Rear Admiral, A Police Commissioner, a Director from the SSS, Asari and Ateke.

The military and security personnel negotiated the price of the various types of weapons. Through this process we recovered and paid for about 3400 guns of various types, and publicly destroyed them in broad daylight in Nigeria Army Bori Camp, Port Harcourt , in the presence of local and International Press and the Ministry of Defence.

There were complaints about political marginalization from some local government areas. Based on these complaints, I dissolved the State Executive Council and reconstituted.

I showed maximum support for the Law Enforcement agencies throughout my tenure. Police, Navy, Army, Air-force, SSS, Prisons, Immigration, NDLEA without exception. No state government did more for any of the services than Rivers State , under my Leadership. Is it not curious that the state would do all these and turn around to support violence and arm youths?

At no time did I attempt to use them for any illegal and unofficial purposes. Let us remember that the Governor has no commanding authority over these personnel. Why then should any Law Enforcement failures be attributed to Peter Odili?