Delta State under the leadership of the Governor, Dr. Eweta Emmanuel Uduaghan is sure to finish strong as well as land well, a new administrative mantra in Delta State was recently strongly emphasized by the state’s Image Maker and Commissioner For Information, Mr Chike Ogeah, when he spoke with news men at his Asaba office, used same opportunity to explained deeper some people friendly land mark achievements of the state government and why such projects were embarked upon, and a range of other issues of public importance.
What follows is the text of the interview.
What we want to actually
know is the concept of the acronym finishing strong and what is behind
finishing strong?
Well, you are aware that
since the governor got re-elected for the second term, there has being series
of litigations this administration has endured. Initially, even before the
litigations, there were periods of elections, re-run election and all that took
some precious time then, which would have being actively devoted to the needs
of Deltans, as you know, Our Governor has a listening ear and a heart that
feels deeper the aspiration of Deltans, but these here and there prolonged
litigations were there, but thanks to the Almighty God, today, it’s a whole new
song.
You see as this period
elapsed, mostly the first tenure, the government was focused on finishing
projects of his predecessor and of course putting his own vision in proper
perspective, because he understood that he had to do a lot of job in the second term, hence he has projects,
across health, education, SMEs, empowerment sectors of the economy.
Basically, on the three
point agenda of Infrastructural development, Peace and Security and Human Capital
Development, it is evident to all Deltans, even you Journalists, that immediately
this administration started doing all we planned to execute, that there were
too many needless and prolonged litigations and when as a government we got
over all that and all hands went straight on plough to serve our people, we got
into the real sphere of delivering democratic dividends to Deltans and that was why we described what we are
seeing today as a harvest of projects all over the state.
We keep telling everyone
that Delta is a massive state, we have over five million people, very diverse
and so whatever project you are having in one place, you must replicate it in
other places, it is not the kind of state where you just develop the state
capital and then everybody shout hosanna and you have done a great job.
So, because of that we
have to develop what we called the two major economic zones, am sure Delta is
the only state that has two viable airports and two massive economic zones; one
of course is the oil and gas zone of Warri and the economic zone of Asaba.
Asaba is 10 minutes away
from the biggest market in Sub-Saharan African and that is why we say we don’t
have projects in Delta really, what we have are programmes, because for
everything we do, every road we construct, any airport we build it is always
with a multiplier effect.
Take for instance, one
of our big projects, which is Ughelli-Asaba Road dualization, over 173
kilometers one side. So, that will be times two of federal high way of three,
four lanes which we have opened up. The whole idea is to be able to connect
these two economic zones; we found out that a lot of our compatriots from
across the Niger where trading and commerce is the real thing.
They have
accidents, they spend days on air trying to go and clear their goods in Lagos
from the Ports and all that and we realized that we have two Ports here: we
have Koko and Warri Ports here, the federal government has given an indication
that they were going to be dredging of those Ports and once that was done, we
knew that all we needed to do was link up those two zones and instead of those
people having to go to Lagos and falling prey to all kinds of accidents, we
would have opened a new transportation hub and axis even just across by road
haulage and all that.
So, that was why we made
sure that there were some star projects like the Warri industrial Park which
supposed to be the biggest cluster of a massive Private Public Partnership, also
the Leisure Theme Park, which is supposed to be our own Disney land, it has a
component of the zoo, the game reserve in Ogwashi-Uku, where you have over 500
species of animals that are going to be on show there, these animals have
already been purchased. In fact I think in another three months or so that
place will be open and people will see the wonder that is waiting for them in
Ogwashi-Uku.
But basically coming
back to you question, I just used this as a background, is that finishing
strong meant that we now have these projects scattered all over the state because
like I said, this governor have a big vision.
We also have massive empowerment projects like
we keep saying you build all the bridges, the roads and the people are hungry,
there is still a massive problem. And that is why we developed our Delta Micro
Credit Scheme which had been acclaimed to be the best in the country, other
states have come to find out the model and how we did it because that scheme
had a double effect.
Like I keep saying everything
we do is a programme, it always have a multiplier effect, we strengthen our
micro finance banks and gave soft loans to a lot of people. A lot of them are
indigent people, a lot are very talented people but have no access to credit, a
lot of them are people with disabilities that would not have been doing anything
and a lot of them would have been young men who out of frustration would have
taken to crime, we harness their potentials, we harness their talents and they
started making all kind of fantastic things from the scheme, we found out that
they were repaying their loans, because these loans were interest free, short
term and they were repaying it easily, of course, that have also strengthening
the banks we partnered, and what we now have is a multiplier effect of well over
10, 000 persons.
You have just say
somebody, maybe a woman that was just doing a one man business in her house,
doing the Akwa-osha or making beads and then you give her access to this
credit, she employs two people and before you know what, this thing is growing,
she employs 10 people, she employs 20. A lot of these goods are finding their
ways to the international market and don’t forget Delta State is 40 per cent
riverine as well so there is massive aqua-culture going on. You go to Warri
axis and you see the kind of fish farming clusters that are all there and that
is one of the things the ministry of commerce has been doing so well at.
So, we had a lot of
these programmes all over the places, we are building two massive first time
flyovers in Delta State, as we are doing these we are complementing it with a
lot of private sector partnership as I talk to you, you can hardly find land to
buy in Asaba anymore.
Why? Because we build
the first class Asaba airport there. So, it opened up the town, you can’t get
any land to buy from here to Agbor. Land is selling at the prices which land
sell in Abuja and in Lagos now in Asaba. So, these are the kind of things we
are doing.
Of course, all the
inter-city roads, all our towns are been tarred, massive environmental cleanup
is going on; we just finished in Warri. I mean, Warri was almost a forgotten
city like people said, it was just a den of filth, we moved in there, over 16
commissioners, governor put a task force in place and we turned that town
around within two-three months and the people didn’t believed that such a thing
could happen. Warri and its environs, Udu, everywhere.
Illegal shops, caravans
that that were trading in, motor cars that were abandoned, grass that have
overtaking the city. Opening up gutters, making sure that rivers are flowing
well. Of course, after the horrendous flood experience we had, we are taking
every precaution and you also know our governor is very high on environment, he
has always subscribe to this climate change thing, he was a member of the R2O,
when he was talking about this kind of thing, people thought he was just
talking until we had those crazy flood and then everybody realize that we have
to take care of our environment.
Lately again, even with this micro scheme I
told you about we became the first to introduce an insurance because we found
out that flowing from that flood a lot of these farmers we were helping lost
most of their farm land. How do you bring them back to what they were? They
don’t have money for insurance.
So, what the government
has done is to institute an insurance scheme now, the micro credit insurance
scheme where the government is the one that have put in bulk of the money and
all their clients are becoming beneficiaries of the insurance scheme. What we are
saying by finishing strong is that we want to finish as many of these projects
both infrastructure programmes and policies.
we are doing both the
training and re-training of our teachers in our secondary schools because if
you notice we have built over 20 first class model schools all over the state
that compete favorably with schools anywhere in the world.
We have re-habited,
renovated, totally refurbished and built new schools like Saint Patrick, Nana
College; we have built four new polytechnics. There has been massive
improvement in our educational sector but we are saying that is not enough.
Of course, our
scholarship scheme is running where Deltans who have first class from any
recognized university in the world would be taken care by the state to any other
level the person want to get to.
Then you come to the
health care, see what we have just done with Eku teaching hospital, the mother
and child hospital in Warri, first class infrastructure hospital dedicated to
just pregnant women and their children, never has it been done so well, one in
Asaba, one in Warri and then the massive renovation of all our health and
facilities, Oghara just the other day was just the first hospital in Nigeria to
organize a successful kidney transplant. If you go to Oghara, you will not
believe that you are in Nigeria because what the governor has done there is
that he has taken that hospital to a different level altogether not just in
terms of the modern equipment, all the scanning equipment you need are all
there as well as the personnel.
What we have done is
that, we gotten Deltans in Diaspora all over that have come back home, some of
them on short term, long term contracts. They are all putting their effort in
the hospital to make a world class hospital. In fact we actually have an
agreement with a university in America where we are going back and forth on the
flows of human capital for that hospital and that have impacted on our own
local staff but the nurses and the doctors because they have seen a higher
level of doing things and it is something else right now.
So, these are all the
things we are doing and of course, with all am saying the game plan or the
strategy we have always talked about is the three point agenda which I have
told you about and then the game plan or the tactics of actualizing it is what
we called Delta beyond oil.
And what are we talking
about Delta beyond oil? We just say look there are those areas where we
have natural comparative advantage, because oil, hydrocarbon and all these
apart from the damage and degradation they do to our environment and deprive us
of the old ways of life where you could see a fish in the water, the water is
clear, but when the whole water is polluted fishes die, the farmland are
wasted.
To Be Continued Next
Week
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