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NDDC: Rewriting Niger Delta�s history
Soni Daniel
The people of the Niger Delta have continued to live with a range of environmental problems ranging from health hazards to lack of safe water and arable land. In spite of the Delta�s resource endowment, its immense potential for economic growth and sustainable development, the region is in a parlous state.�
This picture, painted by an environmental activist and current Secretary to the Bayelsa State Government, Dr. Steve Azaiki, so vividly in his book, Inequalities in Nigerian Politics, is what the Niger Delta Development Commission was inaugurated to ameliorate.
But can the NDDC rewrite the history of the region it was set up to salvage? Almost four years after its inauguration, the intervention agency put in place by President Olusegun Obasanjo has been facing criticisms for being a slowcoach. What brought this about is the same irony painted by Azaiki in his book, where people suffer in a land flowing with milk and honey.
With a total landscape of 70,000 square kilometers, inhabited by 20 million Nigerians grouped into nine states and 185 local government areas, the Niger Delta, remains the third largest wetland in the World- after Mississippi and Pant anal. This wealth-producing area of Nigeria, which accounts for oil reserves of 30 billion barrels and gas reserves of 160 trillion cubic feet, generates 90 per cent of oil earnings and 60 per cent of federally distributed revenue yearly.
Despite the ability of the region to produce enormous resources for the country, it is the area that is facing the most crushing poverty and environmental degradation all year round. It is the only region in Nigeria that reels under the unavoidable effects of oil spill and gas flaring arising from oil production. While the whole region is surrounded by rivers canals thus making flooding of the communities inevitable, the mainland is washed all year round by the tides of the Atlantic ocean.
In fact, a World Bank team, which recently turned its report on the state of the Niger Delta, said that the level of hopelessness in the area must be addressed urgently. �An urgent need exists to implement a mechanism to protect the life and health of the region�s inhabitant and its ecological system from further deterioration,� the report said.
On the day the Commission was inaugurated through the NDDC Act of 2001, Obasanjo had promised to among other things, �bring sustainable development to the Niger Delta, and establish for the people a region that is economically prosperous, socially stable, ecologically regenerative and politically peaceful�.
And despite widespread criticism of its activities and programmes by those who believe the commission is embarking on projects that have no direct relevance to the people, the agency maintains that it has not deviated from the mandate it was given by the government to fix the missing link in the development of the oil producing communities in Nigeria. Apparently waking up from the era of providing desks and chairs for schools in the area, the NDDC appears to have given a listening ear to its critics by taking up the opening of roads, jetties and bridges to link the nine states that make up the Niger Delta. Although it frequently complains of lack of funds for capital-intensive projects, the commission says it is making progress in its efforts to link up the NDDC states with roads and other amenities.
Not even the natives of the water-locked Ibeno and Eastern Obolo Local Government areas of Akwa Ibom State would have dreamt of a road that could link them in the whole of history. But today through the intervention of the NDDC, the two Ijaw-speaking Local Government areas in Akwa Ibom are gradually being connected with their kiths and kin in other parts of the Delta, with the design and construction of the epochal Iko-Atabrikang-Akata-Opolum-Okorutip-Iwuochang Road.
The state Governor, Obong Victor Attah, saw the need for the road and made a passionate appeal to the NDDC in the first year of his administration, to take up the construction of the all-important route so as to open up the coastal part of the state and link up the Obolo and Ibeno people who have cultural links with each other. In asking the NDDC to undertake the road project, Attah in his letter dated February 17, 2000, described the building of the road as not only very critical but also very important to the development of the state.
Elsewhere in the state, the NDDC has made the people of Ekparakwa full of joy through the completion of the Ekpene Ukpa-Ekparakwa road. For the natives, they have every reason to be elated over the new road. For years, the road had been abandoned due to the collapse of the only bridge, forcing the natives to either go through Uyo or Abak before reaching their community.
As a result of the breakdown of the road, the famous Obo Market near Etinan Township that used to attract traders from many of the South-East states died a natural death. Beyond the deplorable road was also the menace of erosion, which effectively cut off many farming communities in Oruk Anam, Mkpat Enin and Etinan Local Government areas, while �okada� riders completely avoided the road.
But even before the completion of the 11-kilometre road with nylon tar, bridge and embankment, the natives have started singing the praises of the NDDC, the agency that awarded the contract. A schoolteacher in the area even boasted that even if the road were the only thing the NDDC would do in the community, they would remain eternally grateful to Obasanjo and his administration.
Our correspondent discovered that the commission had in the past three years embarked on the construction of 798 kilometres of roads with 33 bridges spanning 1985 kilometres. Of the number however, only 139 kilometres of roads have been completed. It was also gathered that a total of N25.46 billion has been spent by the commission on the provision of 56 roads out of which 6 has been completed.
A breakdown of the roads on state-by-state basis shows that Rivers tops the list with 225.22 kilometres, followed by Delta with 158.21 kilometres and Akwa Ibom with 77.36 kilometres of roads. Bayelsa has 59 kilometres, Abia, 53.70, Imo, 10.76, Cross River, 4.80 kilometres while Edo has been given 2.55 kilometres of roads by the NDDC. Only Ondo state is yet to be provided with road by the commission.
One of such major roads that is likely to change the face of Bayelsa and Rivers states, is the Kaiama-Kolokuma-Sabagrie-Polaku, in Bayelsa State where the NDDC is making history by constructing over 60 kilometres of roads as part of its mandate to open up the Niger Delta. NDDC warmed the hearts of the once-forgotten natives when shortly after the destruction of Odi town in 1999; it stepped in and started the provision of roads in the ravaged city in addition to the rehabilitation of the East-West-Odi road and a shore protection scheme.
Like a balm, the initiative of the commission in Odi has gone a long way in soothing frayed nerves against the administration of Obasanjo, which was seen as the brain behind the unwarranted destruction of the city. Nearby, the people of the ancient city of Oloibiri, the legendary but neglected community where oil was first discovered in commercial quantity in Nigeria, the indigenes are rolling out the drums for the present administration, which they claim has taken away their tears of decades.
Said Chief James Egba, the community monarch; �The NDDC has made us to enjoy the benefit of oil exploration in our community for the first time. The commission has partly wiped off the tears of our people occasioned by 46 years of neglect by oil companies and successive intervention agencies.�
In Abia State where the commission is currently building over 53 kilometres of road with a major bridge to link some communities hitherto cut off from their neighbours in Imo State, the ovation has been deafening. The N1.2 billion road which begins from Umuahia and gets into the hinterland of Imo State, is undoubtedly one of the projects that has brightened the hearts of the natives even as the job gets underway. Abia State Governor Orji Kalu appears well pleased by the number of road projects executed by the NDDC in his state.
For Governor Peter Odili, it is understandable why he is full of praises for the NDDC. Rivers state alone is the beneficiary of 255.22 kilometres of the798 kilometres of roads being constructed by the commission across the Niger Delta. The commission and the Rivers State Government are jointly constructing one of the roads-Eastern Bypass- a dual carriageway.
It is expected that upon completion, it will connect Woji through Elelenwo to Eleme and divert traffic from the ever-busy Aba Road. Similarly, those going to Ogoni communities and Akwa Ibom State would not need to go through the Eleme junction as they can jet out of Port Harcourt from the Eastern bypass through Trans Amadi axis. The NDDC is also working on the Rumuolumeni-Ogbogoro Road in Rivers State to connect many communities in Bayelsa state with Rivers through the East- West road.
Added to roads, is the construction of 47 landing jetties in the Niger Delta. Delta state tops the list of beneficiaries with 18 jetties followed Bayelsa which has 15, and Ondo with seven. Rivers has three and Cross River two.
The PUNCH, Thursday, July 8, 2004.
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The President-elect of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo
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