This is certainly not the best of times for over 15 communities of  Egbema  and Oguta   in Imo State of Nigeria ,many of whom have  been forced to flee their homes in the last four weeks due to flood and are now taking temporary shelter at tents. The flood though is going down but the degree of harm caused the people  of Egbema and Oguta  by this flood is better imagined than seen. Opuoma, Obiakpu, Mmahu and Abacheke communities of Egbema have very sad stories to tell about the flood. All the riverine arreas of Oguta , including Orsu, Nnebukwu, Orsu Obodo, Ezi Orsu got caught up by  the flood.The country home of former speaker of Imo State House of Assembly, Chief Goodluck Nanah Opiah in Abacheke-Egbema  was  overrun by  the flood.

This flood disaster shows clearly the lack of planning of the country by present and past leaders. Houses, dams , roads, drainages, and other amenities are not planned to meet the needs of the people. The dearth of social and holistic planning as a result of long time implementation of neo-liberal policies have increased the level of poverty in Nigeria drastically and have pushed Nigerians to self help.

The  flood submerged farmlands, schools, churches, houses, fish ponds and  properties in Egbema and Oguta .It   is the worst in recent history. A monumental disaster indeed. I wish to commiserates with the families that lost homes,properties and farms in Egbema and Oguta to the flood.My heart also goes to other victims of flood in other parts of Nigeria.I wish them well. Many eyes of  the  flood victims in my place(Egbema) betrayed layers of unspoken fears and uncertainty. Many do not even know where to start from again when they will return to their abandoned homes. The very poor ones whose homes were mud houses were currently at a loss and were  not sure where to go after the flood until government and powerful individuals stepped  in to  ameliorate the plight of victims of flood in the State.

Political leaders of Imo state kept party differences aside as they rushed to Egbema and Oguta to sympathise with the flood victims.  Ex  Governor Ikedi Ohakim, Former Imo House Speaker Chief Goodluck Opiah,  Prof Viola Onwuliri, Chief Gerald Irona, Senator Hope Uzodimma , Reps  Deputy Speaker  Chief Emeka Ihediora ,Chief  Osita Izunaso, Senator Chris Anyanwu, Nollywood Artistes, Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Iheme, Vice President Namadi Sambo  have shown that they feel the sufferings of  the people  as they paid a visit to them  and provided relief materials. For this, i say many thanks. The response of the state government under Governor  Rochas  Okorocha  is also impressive. Governor Okorocha  who is a guru in  touching lives of the less privileged positively left no area untouched, to this end; he visited and distributed some relief materials to the flood victims. Kudos, to him.
Governor Okorocha  came  to Egbema with  members of the state executive and other top shots. He also organized a fund raising for the flood victims  in which 50 million naira was raised for the victims. He pointed out that the state government in partnership with the Federal Government would bring spray machines to fumigate areas affected by the flood. Owelle made one touching statement “I want to just let you know that your governor is working overtime to make sure that as soon as possible everybody can get back to normal” What a reassuring speech. The victims   need this encouragement; they need somebody to tell them that there is a future for them; they need somebody to help them plan their future.The Governor also said‘’ Are you upset my people? Have you been lying awake worrying? Well, don’t worry, we are here and we will always be here to take care of you. ”

in  an  SP poll  i  conducted  recently in my blog , 88 percent rate Okorocha’s response to the flood victims as excellent  while just 12 percent see it negatively. To me, Governor Okorocha’s flood response to   my people  is outstanding. Okorocha   did a good thing for the people of the area   with his lorry loads of food  for  the  victims  and he deserves commendation. It will be a mistake to give traders of specious rumours cause to become giddy over the governor’s time frame in reaching out with relief materials to the flood victims. Let’s be clear from the outset and stop playing politics with everything. Owelle is  not perfect, and I do not agree with some of his choices but when he does well we should  shun unnecessary politics and  praise him so he can do more. May God touch  his heart to do more for  my people.

Efforts should be made to stop diversion of the relief materials meant for the flood victims. We are made to understand that some persons are feeding fat from this flood situation by diverting the relief items to unknown places. This is unfair and government should handle the situation well. Unless the distribution of relief materials is done with a human face, it is bound to cause further hardship for the mass of already impoverished flood victims, instead of bringing comfort. The materials should truly get to the victims for such persons to be able to move on with their lives since they are humans and not  mere farm animals. Anything short of this will amount to victimizing the poor and helpless. The people of the State are watching to see how the challenge of this disaster is tackled. We cannot afford to disappoint them. Efforts should also be made to construct standard drainages in Imo state river areas that would absorb the overspill from the river channels, local rainfall and run-off, and tides, which are the causes of flood. With the climatic change, the flood will come back in 2013. We have to be prepared; the floods whether we  like it or not will come again. Next year’s floods could be worse than this.Something has to be done to safeguard Imo from future flood.

I must confess that the recent policies of  Owelle are encouraging. There is  rebranding in his policies and decisions. It was  Prof Dora Akunyili, the former Nigerian Information Minister who  on assumption of office initiated the move to rebrand Nigeria . According to her the process of rebranding is a quest for a new national identity, which hitherto had been marred by the overall poor image. By so doing the major goal was to have the government ultimately chart a new course for its “new” people. Okorocha  to me strive to change the perception of  Imo political terrain and by so doing is  rebranding his style of governance in Imo State. The people are watching. Once again, well done our governor, mboola.

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Kenneth Uwadi, Mmahu-Egbema, Imo State, Nigeria

ENOUGH OF THESE POLITICALLY INCLINED PETITIONS IN DELTA STATE

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Our attention at The Greater Delta Initiative has been drawn to the petition ‘Urgent need for direct payment of 13% derivation Fund to DESOPADEC’ purportedly issued by a self styled pressure group in Delta State called “Ndokwa Youth Elites Forum” (NYEF). The petition which accused the Delta State Governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan of financial recklessness with particular reference to the “fraudulent handling of the 13% derivation fund that accrues to Delta State as an oil-producing state” was directed to President Goodluck Jonathan. According to the petitioners, “in spite of the fact that Delta State Government in 2010 collected a whooping sum of N120.6 billion as 13% derivation fund and N178.8 billion in 2011 as 13% derivation fund, the total money collected for the two years is N304 billion and the 50% share of DESOPADEC (Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission) ought to be N152 billion but there is nothing on ground to show that such money was ever given to DESOPADEC”. The petitioners further queried “why DESOPADEC failed to pay contractors fully for jobs executed and commissioned by the governor”.

As a focused group, we encourage well-articulated opposition to the government’s policies as we strongly believe that it is a necessary vehicle to address the ills of governance. However, after studying the petition by the said Ndokwa Youth Elites Forum, the logical reasoning is that it would be time wasting to educate the authors of such a petition that relied on unreliable information to fuel confusion on the activities of Delta State government. Their motive to gain political capital and unnecessary relevance is well noted as permissible in a democracy but the many falsehoods conveyed in the petition should not be ignored by any rational thinker with interest in the affairs of Delta State. Emphatically, the many distorted facts in the petition portray the petitioners as a group of persons that are not only on a defined mischievous agenda but promoters of an illusionist theory to deliberately distract the Governor of Delta State, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan from his tasking work and where possible, assassinate his credible records of development in the past five years.

As much as we consider these allegations dishonest, grossly misleading, valueless, politically driven, greed motivated and unworthy of consideration except when backed up with credible evidence, however, we consider it pertinent to respond to the comments shared by readers of such a ludicrous and biased petition because it is possible that some uninformed persons may have swallowed the half truths therein.

First, we would like to suggest that the promoters of the petition should understand that the establishment of DESOPADEC was done by an act of law of the Delta State Government not the Federal Government. As such, good reason and sound logic should have informed the petitioners that the appropriate authority to handle their genuine grievance, if any, would have been Delta State House of Assembly and not the Presidency. The desperation of the petitioners to score cheap political point through strange antagonism must have led them into believing that a purely state issue is best handled by a very busy President that is saddled with addressing the many challenges that confront our nation. We therefore urge the authors of the petition to apply commonsense and redirect their petition to the appropriate authorities.

Second, there are many contradictions in Delta state political environment and one of them is certainly George Emakpo Oyefia, the major promoter of the petition. From available information, George Oyefia contested 2011 governorship election in Delta State as ANPP gubernatorial candidate but lost to the incumbent Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan. Indeed, if this is the same man who recently endorsed a petition under the aegis of Mass Movement for Change (MMC) where it was stated that “all ongoing projects in Delta State have been abandoned and have become a veritable means of looting public funds into private accounts”, then, it becomes difficult to find sense in his new argument that Dr Uduaghan is engaged in ‘continuous non-payment of completed DESOPADEC jobs’ executed by contractors. The obvious fact here is that George Oyefia has advanced contradictions that are intentionally misleading and the word “deceitful” will never fit a better skull. We therefore urge the general public to disregard these baseless petitions by treating them as one of the outcomes of post-election shock syndrome of a failed gubernatorial aspirant.

Third, George Oyefia is known to have made a plethora of absurd political claims in the past but his continual naivety in assuming that the reading public is most gullible and would swallow anything he writes to create artificial dents on Uduaghan’s record is highly ridiculous and insulting. The need to stamp out such misinformation and dishonourable activities of such men cannot be overemphasized. Judging by this rambling petition against Governor Uduaghan, it is easy to conclude that George Oyefia is either confused or on a deliberate mission to twist facts. For instance, after endlessly stating that the Uduaghan’s administration has not been developing any new project, he now admits that many projects have been executed by DOSOPADEC, an agency under Uduaghan but for incomplete payment. These concocted inaccuracies are not strange of some politicians but are laughable antagonism because the petitioners in this case have in error showed that development and commissioning of new projects are virtues of the current Uduaghan’s administration in Delta state.

Fourth, the petitioners gave themselves away when they talked about Delta State government’s indebtedness to contractors. Indeed, this is where they missed the argument. That many contractors of DESOPADEC are yet to be paid is misleading and a clear attempt to give half the story on contracts awarded and executed by the commission. From all indications, the authors of the petition are least pragmatic and ill equipped with facts on DESOPADEC. At this juncture, there is really no need to ask if money is the primary motive behind the petition because it is very easy to assume that George Oyefia and his cohorts are part of an opposition that are crude and compromised especially in a society where a large element engage in opposition because of lack of government patronage. To set the records straight, Governor Uduaghan has just reformed DESOPADEC through the use of an interim committee which not only cleared up verifiable debts owed by the commission but overhauled the activities of the commission by introducing sanity in areas of staffing, financial management and project execution. The success recorded by the recently disbanded Interim Committee of DESOPADEC is as clear as the sun and no amount of politicking can change this because without the good work of the Interim Committee, the task for the new Board of the Commission would have been very complicated. As such, the whole story on DESOPADEC is clear for everyone to see that the petitioners’ arithmetic does not add up.

While we agree that most times, disagreement may be based on different sources of information, however, we condemn in its entirety the activities of groups who write petitions without conducting appropriate research like the said Ndokwa Youth Elites Forum that have employed the act of spreading falsehoods on the internet to cause unwarranted disaffection between the governed and the government of Delta State. On the other hand, as a community development organisation that is interested in the rapid development of Delta State, we firmly believe that the Delta State Government owes its people the responsibility of making available information on its vital development activities rather than allow the likes of George Oyefia or his group to bring upon Delta State and its people public amusement induced by self aggrandizement, cheap and foolish propaganda. Also, we wish to use this opportunity to express disapproval over the actions of another appalling group, known as Movement for the Protection of the Rights of Deltans (MPROD) over its bogus claims and crash judgement. We believe that this group of persons, if ever there exist, do not have an idea of the ongoing development in Delta State or evidence to support on their wild and unsubstantiated claims its indictment of Governor Uduaghan for ‘siphoning N1.5 Trillion in public funds’.

Delta State has suffered enough from ethnic, political turbulences and differences. Governor Uduaghan’s multi dimensional approach to development may be difficult for many people to understand but it is obvious that his method of evenly spreading development in all sectors and senatorial districts has brought peace and reasonable harmonious coexistence in a diverse ethnicity like Delta State, which hitherto was largely perceived as plagued with ethnic rivalry and skewed development. We therefore advise the State Government to tackle the gap in information which is tending to have weighty negative impact upon how the public views Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan’s administration despite its many documented achievements in many areas of the State. Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan has given Delta State a new direction and hope for a future that works. Enough of these politically inclined petitions.

Davidson Oghenekewe.

President,

The Greater Delta Initiative.