On the 27th of August 2016, exactly four days from today, Delta State will be marking 25years of Statehood. Delta State was created on the 27th Day of August, 1991 by the Military Administration of Gen. Ibrahim Badamonsi Babangida. The State was created from the Defunct Bendel State (Benin City as her Capital City) which was formerly known as Mid-Western Region at the time it gained regional status in August, 1963, from the then western region.
Delta State is divided into three Senatorial Districts, which are Delta North, Delta South and Delta Central. The State presently covers a landmass of about 18,050 Km2 of which more than 60% is land. It is bounded in the North by Edo State, the East by Anambra State, South-East by Bayelsa State, and on the Southern flank is the Bight of Benin which covers about 160kilometres of the State’s coastline. Delta State is generally low-lying without remarkable hills. The State has a wide coastal belt inter-lace with rivulets and streams, which form part of the Niger-Delta.
If you are a regular visitor to Asaba, you will notice a theme around major spots in the capital city of Delta state. All of a sudden construction works, road maintenance, paintings and a planned restoration of streetlights is underway. Do not get used to all these shenanigans as it is a ploy to hoodwink Deltans into thinking the government is working; actually it is meant to last for at most one week and after the so called “celebration of Delta@25”, all these showmanship will disappear off from the streets.
This is the true story of the “3rd richest state” in Nigeria in terms of federal allocations for 25years, although the state is blessed with natural and human resources, but her biggest challenge is the fate of the state in the hands of recycled leadership since the dawn of the new democratic era in 1999.
The destiny of the state has in almost three decades rested on the shoulders of three men who run the state as a family business, from the first Governor of the democratic era, James Onanefe Ibori, who is currently serving a 13year jail term in the United Kingdom for stealing US$250 million from the state coffers to Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan currently facing indictment from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on cases of electoral fraud and now under the grip of Sen. Ifeanyi Okowa who recently celebrated Iboris’s 57th birth day and has been a regular visitor to the UK prisons.
It is without a doubt a state been run by same breed of leaders and corruption deeply rooted to the core of every state departments. Unfortunately the state is not having any breadth of change anytime soon as the structure and the hereditary nature of the state leadership is one that can hardly be broken. As a core PDP state, the political structure of the state is one that has been decided from the start, it is run as a “turn by turn” basis. A situation were it has become a cliche that ‘it is now my turn to chop’, Ibori has eaten, Uduaghan took his turn, and now it is my turn to chop’.
How can a state under this system of leadership be at per with developments in other oil producing and South-south states like Rivers, Akwa-ibom, Cross river, Bayelsa and Edo state. Even though only Rivers earns higher allocations from the federal vault, Delta state is the least developed state among her neighbors.
For instance, no normal thinking rational mind can compare Asaba, the state capital with other state capitals in the region. It is out of order to try to rank Asaba with Port harcourt, Uyo, Benin city, Calabar or even Yenogoa. It is astonishing to find a state as rich as Delta state taking the last spot in development strides.
The state government has already declared a week of celebration of #Delta@25, but exactly what are Deltans celebrating? Are they now celebrating 25 years of curruption, mediocrity, recycled leadership, gross looting of the state treasury and underdevelopment? Delta state and Asaba her state capital deserve better than this. Until the state takes her rightful place as the most developed state in the Niger Delta region, there is no good reason for celebration yet.