By Keme Deinyefa
A renowned journalist and editor of The Guardian, C. P. Scott, popularised the saying: “Comment is free; (but) facts are sacred.”
In every human society, the presence of armchair critics is a common feature. Unfortunately, most of these so-called conscience of society, out of misplaced passion, engage in ignorant criticisms lacking facts and real substance.
In the last few days, one Kariyai Daukoru has authored and published on the social media, particularly Facebook, two articles critiquing the Senator Douye Diri administration in Bayelsa State. Deploying elevated language, ensconced in deceptive logic, one could be tempted to fall for his veiled tirades as the intervention of a patriot.
In the first piece,
Daukoru attempted to provoke a debate on the economic viability of road infrastructure when, according to him, the government had not established factories that create jobs. Although he later claimed to be misunderstood, one could easily decipher his puerile and annoying logic.
He stated: “Roads without immediate industry are a waste.” Really?
Daukoru’s dismissal of the three senatorial road projects viz Nembe–Brass (Bayelsa East), Yenagoa–Oporoma–Ukubie (Bayelsa Central), and the Sagbama–Ekeremor-Agge (Bayelsa West) roads ignored both economic sequencing and social ROI.
For clarity, the Nembe–Brass road unlocks oil, gas, and maritime logistics on that axis. The Yenagoa–Oporoma–Ukubie road connects inland Bayelsa to the Atlantic economy, fisheries, and marine transportation, while the Sagbama–Ekeremor-Agge road is foundational to the deep seaport at Agge. A port without access roads is dead infrastructure.
Private companies build roads only when immediate profits are guaranteed. But governments invest where long term public value is at stake.
As economist Joseph Stiglitz notes: “Public infrastructure often deliver returns private investors cannot immediately capture, but society ultimately benefits.”
Yes, economic drivers matter. Roads built without industry risk under-utilisation. But roads also deliver social returns such as access to healthcare,
educational mobility, reduced isolation, lower transportation costs among other benefits.
Roads equally reduce uncertainty. They are not substitutes for industry, rather they are preconditions.
In the second piece, perhaps emboldened by the first, Daukoru targeted other key and signature projects of the Diri administration.
For one, he ignorantly posited that the government’s revolutionary 60mw gas turbine project was also a waste as it would not meet the state capital, Yenagoa’s peak power demand. What a fallacy borne out of sheer ignorance or deliberate misinformation!
Daukoru assumed that anything short of total power sufficiency is cosmetic. He is perhaps unaware that in the state, the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has an installed 10mw power station that services its corporate headquarters in Yenagoa and some government establishments. Yet, the installed capacity is not fully utilised.
Daukoru also needs to be schooled that no serious subnational energy transition begins at industrial-scale capacity. Power development is phased, especially in states emerging from near-total dependence on the national grid. The Diri administration did not present the gas turbine as the final solution, but as a base-load stabiliser, a necessary first step before expansion.
Importantly, the state’s power policy made provision for scalability of the turbines as demand increases. This is the reason the government procured modern modular and not rigid turbines.
What Bayelsa has done, in a sense, is similar to the national power policy. Since independence in 1960, Nigeria has been incrementally adding to its power generation capacity. So, to call the Bayelsa turbines “a glorified generator” is to confuse foundations with ceilings. As energy scholar Vaclav Smil explains: “Energy systems evolve incrementally; premature scaling without stability fails.”
Daukoru’s critique of the 30,000-capacity stadium under construction, in favour of his factory logic, is another false and analytically weak narrative. The stadium is not an entertainment ornament. Rather it is a social stabiliser and economic enabler. It creates jobs, supports a sports economy, reduces crime, and channels youth energy productively.
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was explicit in describing sports as “a powerful tool for development and peace.” In Bayelsa, peace is an economic strategy, not sentiment.
Critic Daukoru’s fixation with factories negates an obvious fact: Government has no business in business. And this Is exactly the point.
Here, he inadvertently makes the strongest case for the Diri administration.
Government’s role is to build infrastructure, ensure security, and create an enabling environment. Industrial failure in Nigeria has historically resulted from governments attempting to be entrepreneurs.
So, the Prosperity Administration’s focus on roads, power, peace, and human capital development is precisely how private investment is attracted. Expecting the government to directly operate factories reflects a misunderstanding of modern governance.
His Five-Star Hotel argument is equally off tangent as it misses development sequencing. Labelling the uncompleted structure a “Tower of Babel” ignores reality. A hotel without roads, power, and security is the real waste of public funds. Completing such a project before fixing access and ensuring stability in the state would have been reckless. Infrastructure creates demand while hospitality responds to demand. The Diri administration chose sequence over spectacle; and that is good governance.
Daukoru’s criticism relied on static snapshots. According to him, 60mw is insufficient. Therefore it is useless. A stadium does not equal factories, and therefore it is vanity.
On the contrary, development does not work this way. According to economist Albert Hirschman: “Development is a chain of disequilibria that must be managed, not avoided.”
The reality in Bayelsa’s case is that base load power enables scale. Peace attracts capital, and roads precede industries. This is not a theory but a historical fact.
Perhaps the most striking omission in Daukoru’s critique is the peace variable. Bayelsa today enjoys relative calm in a region once synonymous with militancy and unrest. That peace did not emerge by chance. It is the product of deliberate governance, youth engagement, and dialogue under the Diri administration.
Peace is not decorative. Instead, it is economic capital.
His displeasure with the term “Prosperity Administration “ just as much betrays a poor understanding of governance models. This is not a slogan neither is it achieved by absolutism or selective outrage. Rather than becoming an administration seeking populism by sharing money under the guise of alleviating poverty, the government is tackling the menace through sequenced infrastructure, human capital investment, and institutional stability.
The Diri-led Prosperity Administration has chosen to:
• Stabilise before scaling
• Build foundations before factories
• Secure peace before profit
This approach is defensible, development-literate, and responsible.
In sum, Daukoru’s diatribes suffer from contextual gaps, selective framing, and a static understanding of development, particularly as it applies to a deltaic state like Bayelsa.
Criticism should refine vision, not deny foundations. To attack the very platforms upon which industrialisation depends is not realism; it is a contradiction. Bayelsa is not yet where it should be. But it is no longer where it was. And that is progress!
Keme Deinyefa is a Yenagoa-based media and public communication professional
