By Frank West I.N
A good political representative is a well discipline personality with selfless service to make live better for his constituent members; a selfless service is putting the welfare of the people you are representing before your own. Winston Churchill described it as “the first of all human qualities because it’s the quality which guarantees all others.
The aspiration of the good people of Ndokwa Nation and Deltans in general is to live a peaceful life, encompassed by all necessities of life that aids their daily activities. Unfortunately, our bad crops of selfish and greedy representatives are not ready to bring the dividends of Democracy to our people, especially the good people of Ndokwa Nation. Ndokwa Nation although a minority group in Nigeria, is the second largest ethnic nationality in Delta state, made up of three local government areas with Ndokwa East, with headquarters at Aboh, as one of them. Ndokwa East constituency is the least developed Local Government Area in Delta state, due to the sad neglect of the communities in the area by successive governments, both at the Federal and State levels. In spite of the fact that the area is being littered with dozens of oil wells and host to the operations of dozens of oil companies, however, it is sad to note that more than 80% of Communities in Ndokwa East are devoid of Infrastructural developments in terms of access road networks and other social amenities.
Some of the affected Communities are as follows; Akarai Etiti, Akarai Obodo, Umuti, Afia Nkwo, Umuoru, Adai, Ekpe, Okpokirika, Ibedeni, Oyah, Onogbokor, LagosIyede, IyedeAme, Azagba, ObodoOkoroafor, Ayama, Ibrede, Inyi, Onuaboh, Obikwele, Abala Uno , Utchi Clan amongst others.
If given an opportunity to represent the good people of Ndokwa Nation and Deltan in general, it will be my responsibility to use my position as their representative to attract a lasting dynamic infrastructural and economic developments from the State and Federal Government to the suffering communities that have received little or close to nothing from the State and Federal Government in terms of essential needs of life.
The problems and challenges faced by these remote communities are numerous due. Below are the challenges faced by Ndokwa communities and the solutions I will offer, if given a political mandate to represent them.
LACK OF ROAD NETWORKS:
According to Wikipedia: A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places that has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by foot or some form of conveyance, including a motor vehicle, cart, bicycle, or horse. But unfortunately, the rural communities in Ndokwa East constituency among others in Delta state remains inaccessible in terms of road networks. Some of the challenges faced by these rural Oil rich Ndokwa East communities due to the bad road network are; the difficulty faced by the farmers in transporting their farm produce to the urban markets, frequent accidents that lead sto huge loss of lives and livelihood by the farmers and their families.
Where the roads do exist, they are either in very poor condition or are totally impassable especially during the rainy season. As a result, households, especially those in remote areas, experience difficulties traveling from one point to another within the state or even catching up on new developments. Unfortunately, our elected political representatives have not made any insignificant effort to improve these rural areas. When given an opportunity to represent the people in the political arena, I will make the provision of access road networks to the rural communities a top priority, by working and mounting diplomatic pressures on the State and Federal government to construct access roads to the rural communities.
The emergence of new communication avenues makes connectivity increasingly important, a good and reliable transport network remains vital in reducing the distance between people, markets, services and knowledge. Put differently, ‘getting people connected’ is a great part of what economic growth and effective political representative is all about. Taking into cognizance that the rural environment is often the growth engine of a Local, State and Federal Government in terms of the food supply as well as the custodians of the traditional culture, environment and ecosystems. I will take advantage of the complexities of these interconnecting priorities and strives to make the road provision fits into the larger goals of rural development, and a priority for economic and social growth.
ELECTRICITY: The availability of some certain basic social amenities is the right of every citizen of a Sovereign State but this is not the case for the people of Ndokwa East communities and others in Delta State, as they have been forced to live for more than 100 years like the primitive man who had no means of light for his daily activities except to rely on the sun by day time and the moon by dusk. Even with the existence of the Independent Power Producer (IPP) in Ndokwa East constituency that supplies a constant electricity to Abuja and other places in Nigeria , the residents of Ndokwa East constituency and Ndokwa Nation in general, have not seen even an atom of electricity current in their houses for years now. If elected to represent Ndokwa Nation in the State or Federal level, I will use my position to attract constant electricity to the affected communities, by facilitating and building a mega “IPP Step-down” station in Ndokwa East Constituency, to improve the lives of my constituent members. It is worthy to note that availability of electricity in the rural areas will encourage small scale businesses, thereby boasting the economics activities in the rural and sub-urban areas. This will of course encourage many entrepreneurs within the communities who had shut down their small scale businesses, the opportunity to go back to sales of goods which needs electricity for storage.
HEALTHCARE: It is so sad to note that 90% of the suffering communities in the rural and sub-urban areas are due to lack of Primary Health Care centers. The existing Centers which happen to be the only Health Care centers available in the rural and sub-urban areas are virtually empty and have very few or no staff to man them and as such only serve as home to spiders and rodents. As a result of this, residents of the communities suffer lot of health challenges; especially the population of its aged. High infant and maternal mortality rate are also a common occurrences. These health challenges however lack proper attention as there are no drugs and medical personnel to tackle the problem. If given an opportunity to represent Ndokwa Nation, I will build and equip basic health care facilities for the suffering communities in Ndokwa Nation especially the 90% abandoned Ndokwa East communities.
UNEMPLOYMENT: Although the issue of unemployment has become a major bane to Nigeria’s economy but it is not without doubt that under-developed rural and urban areas suffer more. As gathered from the residence of the affected communities, the communities have many youths with degrees from various tertiary institutions yet with nothing to do. If given the opportunity to represent them politically, in the State or Federal level, I will empower the unemployed youths in small scale businesses and use my political position to attract job opportunities to the unemployed youths from the numerous oil companies operating in Ndokwa Nation.
POTABLE WATER: Besides not being able to access basic necessity like electricity, good access road, the communities also lack potable water. As the only source of drinking water are ancient ponds, which most of the times do not produce enough water, forcing the people to rely on streams for their drinking water. If given the opportunity to represent my constituency in the State or Federal level, I will take drastic steps to provide Solar boreholes, Hand pump boreholes and other clean sources of water supply to each and every single community in the rural areas as part of my constituency projects.
EDUCATION: Education plays a vital role in every individual’s life, and as such, it is the responsibility of the government to some extent, to provide infrastructures to aid this purpose. More than 80% of communities in the rural areas lack basic educational facilities or infrastructures to aid their primary and secondary educations. Some of the communities also have no Secondary School for pupils who finished from dilapidated Primary Schools. Furthermore, there are no adequate classes to house the pupils, as some of them receive their lectures under trees and or in dilapidated educational facilities. The communities also complained about the lack of teachers, as the teachers posted to the rural communities find it difficult to access some of these areas, as a result of bad road networks. If elected to represent the good people of Ndoshimili (Ndokwa Nations) and Deltans in general , at the State or Federal level, I will focus on building basic educational facilities in the rural areas and work with the executive arms the State or Federal Government to attract the needed developmental indices to these rural areas.
In conclusion, the benefits of politically building and attracting rapid infrastructural development to the rural areas are fairly clear: with improved infrastructure, the rural area dwellers will live a better life, new growth opportunities in the manufacturing and service sector can be generated, barriers to rural/urban trade and intra-regional trade can be reduced or removed completely, and the economies will be better positioned to transition from low to higher productivity activities. Without improved infrastructure, I fear the rural communities will continue to live in pains and the desired increase in productivity and greater economic diversification necessary to sustain the current Delta State economic growth momentum will never materialize.
Concerned Nigerian
Frank West I.N
The views expressed here represent solely the views of the author and not the views of FunmiNews
