From Tony Osauzo, Benin
The Ijaw community of Gelegele in Ovia North-East Local Government Area of Edo State, has called on the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), to revisit the Udo-Ufunoma-Enikura-Gwilebu Road project abandoned over 11 years ago.
The people said about 100 communities have been cut off over non-completion of the road project.
The community lambasted the NDDC for leaving out oil producing communities, particularly Gelegele, from its several intervention projects.
The Chairman, Gelegele Executive Council, Mr Omaghomi Olu-Derimon, who made the appeal at a breakfast meeting with select media practitioners in Benin, lamented that the communities that lay the ‘golden egg’ were being neglected in favour of those without crude oil.
He stressed that the neglect has almost destroyed the reason that birthed the interventionist agency, but commended the present board of the NDDC for taking the right step to correct the abnormality.
“I think over time, before the NDDC, you know, we had the OMPADEC. We’ve been having some form of intervention agencies that are meant to probably give the government some kinds of support to develop the oil communities and oil producing states.
“I think the NDDC has not actually met its major target, its major aim of developing, or the overall development of the Niger Delta states.
“Because if you compare the amount of money that has come into this region via NDDC, I think the gap is just too wide. But from what I see from the current administration of the NDDC, there is a kind of difference. I think we can see a kind of step up from what we’ve seen before.
“We can see a focus in the NDDC. But the area where I really want to bare my mind in the present NDDC is for them to bring development down to the oil producing communities, not just the states.
On the abandoned road project, Olu-Derimon said: “Udo-Ufunoma-Enikura-Gwilebu Road has been abandoned since 2015 by the NDDC.
“That road is a gateway to the Riverine communities from Ovia to West, and over 100 communities have been impacted negatively by its non-completion.
“The people of these communities go through harrowing experiences during the rainy season and we appeal to the NDDC and the state government to see to its completion.”