Agbor Tsunami: Are Delta Development Projects Wash-Wash?

Many Deltans were shellshocked at the tsunami that swept through Agbor in Delta State recently. The reason we were shell-shocked is that under the circumstances, those images were not supposed to be real and could have been computer generated images, CGI, from those who do not wish Delta well. But no, these were not CGI nor were they AI.

The video was an event of a massive tsunami sweeping through some auspicious roads in Delta state, roads which the previous administration of Dr Ifeanyi Okowa spent a whopping N30billion naira to either renovate, rehabilitate or construct. Whilst we were in the middle of our befuddlement on whether or not those images of the Agbor tsunami were real or not, we noted that the damnedest part of that Agbor tsunami, and what greatly conspires with our utter disbelief that a tsunami of that proportion could ever take place in Delta State is in the relentless narratives of infrastructural development supposedly taking place in Delta State. Week after week, month after month, the Delta State government publishes videos and skits that market development activities of the Oborevwori administration.



If you are Deltan and if those pictures of the supposed development strides of the Delta governor do not excite you, you would not be true Deltan. This is because even though Delta State is super rich in human and the material resources, our people wallow in poverty of the critical kind. Bearing this in mind, and knowing about some of the wayo and jibiti that have been perpetrated by some of those who have run Delta state in the past, we submitted an informal proposal to agents of the Delta State government, to arrange for independent reviewers to ascertain the veracity of these projects.

We have made that request to the Otota of the state governor but whenever we have made those requests in an informal manner, the Otota would respond with skits and drama pieces of the brilliant yet suspicious development work of the governor, as though the information ministry is some kind of theatre arts department or a playhouse. Part of the theories on why Delta State moves at a snail pace to be the Dubai of Nigeria centres around the fabled wealth of Delta. In addition to receiving the fattest allocation in Nigeria, she also gets a 13% oil derivation.

The only thing anybody knows about those monies is that there is a 50 percent of the 13% being spent on God-knows-where, with skits put forward as evidence. As we speak, nobody in Delta state knows what the remaining 50 percent of the 13 percent of the derivation monies are being used for. Nobody knows the value of those projects, nobody knows how they are delineated and nobody knows the bidding processes leading to the award of the contracts of those wonderful projects often featured in those unspontaneous skits.

Maybe because I was misunderstood concerning the gravity of the informal requests for information about how our monies are being spent in Delta State, I have had to make the request formal. In a freedom of information letter, I have requested to know HOW Delta state’s derivation monies are being spent. What responsible institutions do upon receiving such requests is to provide a response.

This response could come either way: a denial of your request or a response with details of information that you have sought. I got none of those. Instead, the Delta government continues to unleash those third rate videos of doubtful apocrypha of what it is doing with public monies.

It was in that same week after my FOI to the delta state government that the Agbor tsunami hit. As things stand, I am not interested in the predictable response of the Delta state government to the Agbor tsunami. I am also not verily interested in going into the merits and demerits of the 2018 Appeal court ruling that promoted state governors ignoring requests for information from interested parties.

The reason is that the Supreme Court has already thrashed the decision of the Appeal Court apparently as response to the Delta state government on behalf of Deltans. But let us be clear, on this, that I hold dear two indefatigable truisms: one is that it does not matter how many skits and videos that the Delta state government produces to promote whatever achievements it claims to have recorded. What matters is that there is strong evidence arising therefrom the Agbor tsunami that those claims are not credible, are invalid, a creation in the figment of the imagination of those bent of using those skits to do wash-wash in Delta state.

It is a mighty question mark on the integrity of the Delta State government. Second, those monies we are seeking an account on do not belong to the Delta state governor. They are public monies, held in trust for Deltans, who have a right to know and ask questions how those monies are being spent.

What most Deltans like myself worry about is that a great chunk of those monies are being used to pull the wool over our eyes, and will consequently likely be put to use to Okowarise or Oborevworise political positions in Nigeria..