Wike went on to say that the gesture was part of the stomach infrastructure he promised the state.
Nyesom Wike, Rivers State Governor on Friday appointed 100,000 more special assistants to increase the number of his newly appointed special assistants on political units to 200,000.
The governor, while inaugurating the last batch of the 100,000 appointees at the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium, Omagwa in Ikwerre Local Government Area, said he took this decision to accommodate people who are willing to work with him.
Wike went on to say that the gesture was part of the stomach infrastructure he promised the state.
He asked local government chairmen to return to their jurisdictions and identify more people for appointments.
Wike had earlier increased the number of his special assistants to 100,000 in October.
This was done a few days after he appointed 28,000 special assistants for political units and hundreds of ward liaison officers.
The governor explained that the appointees would play a pivotal role in his administration.
SaharaReporters earlier exclusively reported that operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) discovered billions of naira in cash stashed in various houses of three Nigerian governors, including Wike.
Others are Governors Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano and Bello Matawalle of Zamfara.
EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa earlier said three serving state governors were being monitored over their moves to launder stashed billions of naira through the payment of salaries to workers.
The development follows the announcement by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that it will redesign some naira notes.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on October 26 announced that the country’s currency would be redesigned to address many issues that have negative effects on the economy.
While the re-designed notes would be released on December 15, Nigerians have up to January 31, 2023, to deposit the old notes in banks.
However, the mad rush by top politicians, traders, investors and other members of the public to cut corners and convert stashed funds into dollars, property and others, has created tension in the economy.
However, Bawa in an interview with Daily Trust said that some governors were devising means to launder the money they stashed in houses. He added that so far, the commission was closely monitoring three of them.
He said intelligence at the disposal of the commission showed that the three governors had concluded plans to inject the money into the system through the payment of workers’ salaries.
“Let me tell you something, the Intel that I have yesterday and I would want you to take this thing very seriously. Already, some state governors that have some of this cash stashed in various houses and the rest are now trying to pay salaries in cash in their state,” he had said.
While the EFCC boss refused to disclose the identities of the three governors, multiple sources in the anti-graft agency identified them as Governors Wike, Ganduje and Matawalle of Rivers, Kano and Zamfara respectively to SaharaReporters.
“The three governors we are monitoring are Governors Wike, Matawalle and Kano’s Ganduje. Billions of naira stashed in their homes in Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano have been discovered,” a top EFCC official told SaharaReporters.
“These three state governors were caught trying to move these huge sums of notes kept in their residences after the CBN announced its decision to redesign the naira notes.
“They are in billions; that of Ganduje is purely kept in Kano but he has used some parts to pay for a hotel he’s building in Abuja. The hotel is at the back of the Nigerian Air Force Conference Centre.”
“Zamfara governor, Matawalle kept his own in some houses he owns in Abuja while Wike has his own kept in Abuja and Port Harcourt,” one of the sources said.
One of the sources also confirmed to SaharaReporters that the governors “are not trying to use them (stashed funds) to pay salaries to workers,” which may explain Wike’s sudden appointment of thousands of special assistants who will be paid salaries.
Meanwhile, according to Bawa, the move by the governors to launder the stashed money through a cash payment of salaries contravenes Section 2 of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act.
“I don’t know how they want to achieve that but we have to stop them from doing that. Well, we are working, they have not paid the salaries in cash yet but it is a very serious thing,” Bwa had said.