By PEREOWEI DIEBU
Bayelsa State is one of the few richest states in Nigeria with an average of 50billion Naira monthly allocation minus 10billion Naira Internally Generated Revenue. Yet, it has become a paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty, with the masses of the state’s residents living in the unfortunate reality of poverty.
In spite of that, rather than partnering with a son of the soil, Dr. Chief Samuel Ogbuku and availing the state of the privilege of having him as the Managing Director of the NIGER DELTA DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION, through whom to facilitate and attract development to the state, the state government has been busy sponsoring blackmailing write-ups and stories in the media to rubbish the good job the NDDC MD has been doing, out of unnecessary envy by the Governor Douye Diri-led government.
In recent times, it is worrisome that several damaging and denigrating articles have been published targeting the Minister of Regional Development, Engineer Abubakar Momoh and the MD of NDDC, Dr Chief Samuel Ogbuku, just because the Minister praised NDDC over the good job the Commission is doing, including the completion of the Ogbia – Nembe Road project. The articles which were written by one Ogheneavo Akaruese and Fred Ebiowei, who in their separate vitriolic attacks on the Minister and the NDDC MD, denied the pioneering contributions of the Commission to the completion of the road project and rather attributed the success story to Shell and the Bayelsa State Government under Senator Henry Seriake Dickson. This is a crude propaganda that could only be propagated by the Douye Diri-led government that classically represents a monumental failure in the history of Bayelsa State.
The Minister of Regional Development, Engineer MOMOH commended the NDDC based on the positive indicators of performance across the States that make up the NDDC, of which Bayelsa is one of the greatest beneficiaries with projects being done all over the state. What else does the visionless and myopic government without focus want from the Samuel Ogbuku led Management of NDDC? If Ogbuku is removed as the MD of NDDC, the opportunity to fill the position will go to another state.
Anyone who is afraid of Ogbuku’s rising profile should go and hug transformer.
The authors of those puerile articles were quick at accusing Ogbuku of turning the NDDC to a political cash cow but they have forgotten the humongous cash cow the Bayelsa Electricity Board has become, where billions of Naira is being siphoned under the guise of executing one project or the other, without results. The corruption at the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and several phantom projects that never saw the light of day are worrisome.
We can now understand why Governor Douye Diri is in a desperate bid to take refuge under the APC by his calculative plan to join the ruling party at the centre.
It must be made clear that nobody on earth will stop the Dr. Chief Samuel Ogbuku’s gun boat that will soon berth in Bayelsa.
We are aware of the deal in hiring authors from neighbouring states to rubbish the soaring profile of the Dr. Chief Samuel Ogbuku in the nooks and crannies of the country. The operation light up Niger Delta, through the provision of Solar light in every community in Niger Delta within one year in office, is a signature project that has become an envy attracting their propaganda, while for the over 12 years of the PDP government of Seriake Dickson and Douye Diri, Bayelsa has become synonymous with darkness.
. PEREOWEI DIEBU, Chairman of SAMUEL OGBUKU 2027 SUPPORT GROUP, writes from PortHarcourt, Rivers State
