Banner Online News

By Fred Edoreh

At last, the August #EndBadGovernance protest, also known as the #HungerProtest came as scheduled and, in Delta State, like in various other states and cities of the country, there were processions in Warri, Sapele, Ughelli, Agbor, Asaba, Abraka and other urban centres.

By effective engagement between the State Government, the local governments, the security agencies, traditional rulers, religious leaders, workers, students bodies, community leaders and youth bodies, the processions in Delta State have been relatively peaceful.

In Abraka, we saw the turn out of perhaps one of the oldest women in the country, which on its own is a very strong message. In Ughelli and Agbor, we saw the Council Chairmen, Olorogun Jaro Egbo and Jerry Ehiwarior, interact with the protesters. Ughelli made it even beautiful on Day 1 with the viral photo of a soldier distributing water to some of the protesters.

There may have been a few leakages, as nothing is perfect, but aside reported clashes with the police in their attempts to clear off the blockade of the East-West Road by Otovwodo Junction, Ughelli, and the Benin-Onitsha highway by Agbor, the protest in Delta has been markedly civil and peaceful, unlike some parts of the country where hoodlums substantially hijacked the protest to loot and destroy public infrastructure and private properties of their equally impacted fellow countrymen, by which a number of deaths and injuries have been reported following clashes with security agencies.

The scenario in Delta speaks to the high intelligence and civility of the people, which Governor Sheriff Oborevwori has acknowledged and commended them for.

It is because Deltans are typically very politically and socially matured people, and they clearly understand the issues surrounding the protest: which simply are that the policies of President Bola Tinubu’s administration, especially the abrupt removal of fuel subsidy and the floatation of the Naira, have led to galloping inflation in the price of commodities, particularly foodstuff, and untenable rise in the cost of living, alongside other spirals, which has exacerbated the hardship earlier inherited from the Muhammadu Buhari administration, and that the palliative regimes of the Tinubu Presidency serve no deep nor lasting effect to mitigate the situation.

Notwithstanding the other hashtag of “TinubuMustGo,” the organisers have tried as much as possible not to bring political colouration to the protest, but if we must call a spade a spade, the protest has been precipitated by the effects of the bad policies and bad governance that have been unleashed on Nigerians by the APC-led federal government since 2015 when Buhari took over, and now into Tinubu’s turn.

Nigerians liken the situation to the Biblical king who said while his father flogged with whip he would flog the people with scorpions.

Indeed, the economic indices since the APC took over government have been terrible. The people have been crying about the rising cost of Garri, rice, tomato, pepper, yam, pure water, Indomie, fuel, electricity tariff, you name it. They have been following the excruciating decline of the Naira from about N180 to the dollar in 2014 to N300, N450, N600 under Buhari, to now about N1,600 under Tinubu, and the attendant difficulties this has posed for businesses across all sectors.

Worse is that the APC government has presided over unprecedented insecurity, especially the spread of bandits who have driven the people across virtually all of our communities from their farms, even from small subsistence farming for family feeding.

The people are therefore asking for a review of the policies which, among others include tangible commitment to visible investment in agricultural production to ensure food sufficiency, more effective security actions to defend and protect communities against bandits to enable uninhibited farming, and quick action to effect local refining of petroleum products for adequate and affordable domestic supply, which would also save the Naira from its continuing depreciation. These, they believe, would reasonably unburden the economy and reverse the hardship on the people.

These are the issues. They are nationwide and not peculiar to any state of the country.

It was therefore a ridiculous irony to read Innocent Jefia, a Delta APC propagandist apparently calling for a stronger and perhaps more destructive protest in Delta State, as he wrote in his micro blog on August 2 under the title “Delta State Needs Hardship Protest.”

The objective of his article was very glaringly base and primitive. Albeit with disingenuously senseless, childish and illogical arguments, he wishes and merely tried to incite the protesters to carry out wanton destruction of properties and unleash terror on the populace in Delta, all in the name of the nationwide protest.

While his malevolence and ill will on his state can be understood as typical of bad losers, his pretence not to know that the protest is against the continued bad governance and retrogressive policies of his APC, a party which ironically calls itself “progressive,” is simply a shame.

The good thing is that Deltans know better: that the protest is nationwide and simply against “crimes against humanity” that have been consistently perpetuated by APC governments since 2015 and continuing.

Deltans know that the protest is not, cannot and would never be against their State Government nor the administration of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori which they see and recognise to have brought greater and fresher impetus to governance which is impacting very positively on the people, like never before.

Take Warri and Uvwie, for instance. On inauguration, Governor Oborevwori made them a promise, and the people can see that he is fulfilling it. It has not been just about the flyover bridges for which “Waffarians” and the youths are enjoying construction and associated jobs and business engagements, while looking ahead to the eventual infrastructural renewal of their metropolis and anticipating the resurgence of various businesses which will generate more jobs and opportunities for sundry enterprises and wealth creation. The people have also been very pleased to see the reconstruction of various internal roads and streets, too numerous to mention, across Warri, Effurun, Udu and the environs.

It is the same in Ughelli area in which, besides the various internal roads completed and ongoing, they appreciate that the construction of Orere Bridge, which is in progress, will connect and provide a new lease of life for over 26 rural communities in Ewu Kingdom and beyond. They also appreciate the initiation and completion of the Okuodiete-Ogolo Road which connects the Sapele-Warri road to the East-West Road by Agbarho, bypassing and providing an alternative route from Effurun.

In Sapele, Governor Sheriff is on the move to reconstruct the critical Okirighwre-Benin Road, just as attention is being paid to Shell Road Extension, Eseimoni Street and environs, Major Bowen Road, Benin Road by GKM and a number of others.

The riverine people of Ndokwa East know what the completion of the Beneku Bridge means to them, just as the completion of the Isheagu-Ewulu bridge and road, Okpanam-Ibusa Bypass, Asaba-Ibuzo road, Obi-Ibabu road, Ute-Ukpu road and many others in Aniocha, Oshimili and Ika areas are well appreciated by the people.

The feeling is the same for the people of Burutu and Bomadi for whom the Bedeseigha Bridge has been reconstructed and attention now shifted to Ayakoromo bridge. These are besides various completed and ongoing internal roads in Burutu, Bomadi, Patani, Ogulagha, Okenrenkoko, Kurutie and so on.

The completion of 15 of the 19 bridges on the about 27km Trans Warri Ode Itsekiri road is no mean commitment to the service of the people. The people of the great Ewere Kingdom know so, and they are confident about the commitment of the government to its completion.

Deltans equally appreciate the speed of work on the Ughelli-Asaba Expressway, just as the people know the significance of the ongoing reconstruction of the old Umutu-Abraka-Eku road by the state government to provide an alternative route for the people, pending when the FG makes good its promise to reconstruct the Amukpe-Eku-Abraka-Agbor federal highway.

In the education sector, the tertiary students community across Delta acknowledge and appreciate Oborevwori’s completion of several facilities in all their campuses – from lecture halls to internal roads, administrative buildings, ICT centres, engineering workshops, laboratories, libraries, etc – which have eased their processes of learning. This is besides the establishment of more campuses and new institutions to expand the space for the admission of Delta youths from secondary schools.

In similar manner, the state has upscaled a large number of primary health care centres and General Hospitals which are now being re-equipped with modern medical facilities and necessary amenities.

The social sector has seen an expansion of the D-Cares Programme and a boost with the introduction of the MORE Grant Programme designed to elevate micro, small and medium enterprises. While these are going on, the Job Creation Office has also intensified action on existing programmes like YAGEP and STEP which supports women, youth and graduates not only in the acquisition of technical skills but also with funding to empower them to set up their own business, become self employed, financially independent and subsequently expand the scope for youth employment.

The Oborevwori administration has also paid premium attention to agriculture, not only by supporting farmers with seedlings, feeds, fertilisers, equipment and other technical needs, but by also investing to re-activate the farm settlement at Mbiri and other cluster farms in the state, and supporting the establishment of processing industries.

These achievements in just about a year have elicited great confidence and trust among Deltans about their government, and they well understand that the future of Delta is bright and secured under Oborevwori.

Therefore, no matter how much the opposition bales, no matter how much they wish for evil to befall their own state, no matter how much they try to incite protesters to destroy properties and visit mayhem on their fellow Deltans, their counsel will always fall like the counsel of Ahitophel. This is because Delta youths understand that the hardship in Nigeria was caused by the adverse policies of the APC federal government, and they certainly will not allow themselves to be instigated into violence by agents of the same APC against their own state.

Delta youths are no fools. They have joined in the protest with other compatriots across the country to make the demands on Tinubu’s federal government, but they will not do so by destroying the assets and institutions that serve their very communities nor the properties of their own brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, uncles and aunties, as Jefia and his band of malevolent opposition are wishing to see.