Celestine Omehia

Who is Celestine Omehia?

Sir Celestine Omehia was the fourteenth Executive Governor of Rivers State in Nigeria. He is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party. He is married to Mrs. Anthonia Omehia and they have three children.

He served as the Honourable Commissioner for Education in the state between February 1992 and November 1993. He was declared the winner of the Rivers State gubernatorial election of 2007, held on 14 April 2007, despite wide scale vote rigging and violence. He was sworn in as Governor of the oil producing state on 29 May 2007, taking over from Dr. Peter Odili.

In June 2007, Shell Petroleum Development Company announced a plan to relocate its headquarters from Port Harcourt to Lagos for security reasons. Amehia appealed to the people to help fight against hostage takers, who were harming the state economy. In September 2007, Celestine Omehia won approval for a supplementary state budget of N53.2 billion in addition to the approved 2007 budget of N179 billion. The supplementary budget was almost entirely earmarked for capital projects. Tell Magazine stated that Omehia may have been under pressure to settle "election liabilities".