Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has been talking about his struggles to complete the Port Harcourt Campus of the Nigerian Law School.
Governor Wike who disclosed that the project gulped 17 Billion said he was initially afraid of going ahead with the project following his meeting with some construction companies.
He said the price quoted for him made him afraid of the consequences of failure for the project.
He said he decided to go the route of Politicians in putting up the project after meeting with them.
He disclosed that he gave them an option of going to jail if they fail to finish the 17 Building project which he added were done by a politician each.
According to him, he supervised the project day and Night and added that he was impressed by the fact work never for once stopped on the site including on weekends.
” The campus of the Law School has come to stay, This campus was not designed by us. It was designed by the Council of Legal Education. And they said this should be a model if anybody wants to build a campus of the Law School. So it starts in we design, though. I said you design. Tell us what you want, how you want it. So I said, you know, that tomorrow we design it in our own way.
I don’t want to start a project. I cannot finish it, this project. I said, I will finish it within one year. i called Julius Berger but i was afraid, So I called Lubrigs. According to Lubrigs, they gave me a price to discourage me for this one project. I didn’t.
This is one project that i must finish it, so i called Politicians and gave them the condition to go to jail if they don’t finish it and they accepted and i was afraid.
I was afraid that people will say look at him oo, he is arresting his people, All the buildings here. Each one by one. they were built by Politician. Each work. Each work. If you have 17 buildings here they were all done by politicians.
Every morning I’m here, I came to supervise the work. Up here, I do work and told their wives that your husband is planning to go jail and they asked me why did you tell our wives?
They were working day and night. Even on Sunday, they were working. We completed this project in ten months time. Ten months time.
It cost us 17 billion. We’re not going to die”.