By Frank Tietie
The only way to ensure probity and expose the corrupt maladministration that has bedevilled Delta State since 1999 is to vote out the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which now appears to have held the state and its people in captivity, dooming them to a highly, regrettably perpetual state of underdevelopment, despite potentially being the richest state in Nigeria.
For goodness sake, who cursed the Delta people with these kinds of leaders? Whereas the juju spell on the state appears to be quite strong I ever strongly believe that the time for the liberation of the state has come once again and it is in the hands of the people of Delta State, themselves.
Recent revelations about funds remitted to the PDP led administration of Dr Ifeanyi Okowa without commensurate human and infrastructural development demand that the governor and his entire administration be probed.
There is a suspected criminal enterprise about the way the resources of Delta State have been utilised by the PDP and its gang of collaborators within and outside the state. Though it is not yet time to mention names.
Opposition political parties in Delta State, particularly the All Progressives Congress (APC) must form a loose alliance to chase away the PDP from the Asaba Government House in 2023. It is when that happens, some truths about how the state resources were stolen would come out and most probably, the evil trend would stop.
Please let’s have some good music play in Delta State that is different from the present macabre of deathly captivity of silence that has weaponized poverty and underdevelopment. The people of the state are suffering and dying in the midst of plenty. That can no longer continue!
Whereas another Governor, Nyiesom Wike of Rivers State, with much less resources is parading world class flyovers and floating roads, the PDP Governor of my state is struggling to justify the huge funds Delta State has collected in the same period as Wike.
In my last visit to Warri earlier this year, I was scandalized by blocked drains on nearly every major road with punishing putrid smells. Upper Afiesere Junction in Ughelli had become a rift valley covered with rain water and was impassable.The only state built flyover around the Effurun Roundabout was covered with floor tiles. Goodness me!
I don’t want to talk about schools and hospitals. I have been informed that they are in a comatose state of affairs. Unity School Agbarho (USA), one of my alma maters was dead. I had to send a N100,000 contribution recently to the old students association to assist in building a toilet for the innocent boys and girls who had been using the bush for convenience. My other alma mater, Government College Ughelli has been practically sustained and maintained by the Old Boys’ Association which has spent over 500 Million Naira in the last ten years to maintain the standards as they once were. The Delta State Government cannot take credit for the present manageable state of GCU. In fact the Old Boys’ Association should take over the school.
I do not wish to be neutral on the issue of Delta State and the use of its resources. The PDP has been a disaster and curse to the people of the state. If and when a new political party manages to take over the state, the people may be afforded a reset and a new lease of fresh political engagement that would not allow them to go back to the bondage which the PDP had kept them since 1999.
It is up to the people of the state to decide. They would no longer have the right to complain about bad governance and pillaging of their resources by public officials if they return the PDP in 2023.
▪︎ Frank Tietie, Esq., Lawyer from Ughelli, Delta State, writing from Asokoro, Abuja
