So how did a project that was far from completion make it to the presidential list of infrastructural achievements under Mr. Muhammadu Buhari? More so, because the project was not even initiated by his administration. Well, the false claim may not be difficult to explain in a country where dead people make the list of federal appointments…
It’s the silly season again — and I am not referring to the hallowed Christmas season of course, even as it now partially coincides with the election season in Nigeria. It’s the silly season of political campaigns in Nigeria; 2019 is already upon us and another cycle of elections are about to take place in our homeland. As usual, all roads lead to fresh promises of great projects to be built or claims of numerous “completed” projects. All in the name of what Nigerians, in their ever-creative coinage of new terms, call “the dividends of democracy.” But the traditional political theatrics of the president doesn’t quite seem to be going according to the script this time around. It’s no longer 2015 when Mr. Muhammadu Buhari easily rode to victory in the presidential election backed by political defectors (or in Nigerian media parlance, decampees) from other parties, including the erstwhile ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). And so, during his presentation of the 2019 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday, December 19, the general’s patience was stretched to the limits by politicians who greeted his speech with boos and shouts of “Lies, lies!”
One part of that the president’s presentation that stuck out is his declaration that: “Infrastructure development is also another area in which we have made a lot of progress. For example, in the Ministry of Water Resources, we identified 116 abandoned or uncompleted projects relating to irrigation, dams, drainage and water supply. To date, we have completed and/or commissioned a number of these projects, including: Central Ogbia Regional Water Project, Bayelsa State; Northern Ishan Regional Water Supply Project, Edo State; Sabke Water Supply Project, Katsina State; Takum Water Supply Project, Taraba State; Ogwashi-Uku Dam, Delta State; Shagari Irrigation Project, Sokoto State; Galma Dam, Kaduna State; Mangu Water Supply Project, Plateau State; and Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi Water Supply Project, Benue State.”
PREMIUM TIMES, Nigeria’s leading investigative newspaper, fact-checked this claim by the president during his budget presentation and declared its verdict thus: “This claim has been made several times, by the government, even though there is no publicly available documentation to support the claim.”
The “several times” the claim has been made includes two earlier announcements by the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, that went unchallenged. According to a report by Sammed Olukoya for investorsking.com, the minister said, while presenting a progress report of his ministry on Tuesday Noveberm 13, 2018, that: “the seven completed projects that were ready for inauguration were Kashimbila Dam in Taraba State; Ogwashi-Uku Dam, Delta State; Shagari Irrigation Project, Sokoto State; Galdam Dam, Kaduna State; and Ekeremor Water Supply Project, Edo State.”
According to syndicated reports filed by different news media in November 2017, Minister Adamu made a similar claim while presenting his ministry’s scorecard for two years: “It is also my pleasure to inform this gathering that the following projects have also been completed and are ready for commissioning: Northern Ishan Regional Water Supply Project, Edo State rehabilitation of Ojirami Dam Water Supply Project, Edo State. Kashimbiia Dam, Taraba State, Ogwashi-Uku Dam, Delta State” (my emphasis).
Apparently, the claim is part of an exaggerated election season checklist of achievements. Ogwashi-Uku is my hometown in Delta State of Nigeria. Famous for its heroics during the Ekumeku Movement against British imperial forces between 1883 and 1914, as documented by historians Don Ohadike (1991) and Philip A. Igbafe (1971), the fortunes of the town have dwindled over the years. The decline of the former headquarters of the old Asaba Division is reflected in its virtually being abandoned to decay by successive administrations after Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbeimudia’s fondly-remembered strides as military governor of the old Midwest/Bendel State. More recently, however, the town has resorted to self-help for infrastructural renewal and development. The construction of the dam has been the federal government’s most visible project in the area in decades.
Besides the lingering dam issue, another symptomatic infrastructural challenge the Ogwashi-Uku community has had to deal with is electricity. For close to one decade, the town was without electricity. Nigeria’s state-owned Power Holding Company of Nigeria Plc (PHCN Plc, a.k.a. NEPA) simply went away on leave (AWOL).
Earlier this year, Delta State government reportedly raised an alarm about the uncompleted status of the 12-year old Ogwashi-Uku Dam project begun in 2006. Mr. Fidelis Okenmor, the commissioner for Water Resources, lamented in a report published respectively by both The Eagle Online and Vanguard newspaper of April 30, 2018 that: “We can’t wait to see the multi-million naira Ogwashi-Uku dam project waste away. Our in-house study tells us that this dam with its water treatment plant has the capacity to supply potable water to Ogwashi-Uku, Ubulu-Uku, Issele-Uku, Onicha-Ugbo, Ibusa and Asaba, the state capital. We have been piling pressure on the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, not to only complete the dam but also to hand over the operations and management of the dam to the state.” Similarly, Mr. Pascal Adigwe, a former member of the House Representatives and currently deputy director-general for Delta State PDP campaign and in whose constituency the dam is located, has strongly advocated for the completion of the dam. In a statement posted on Arise Africa online, Hon. Adigwe claims that “the Dam was almost 90% completed before former President Goodluck Jonathan left office in 2015,” but “the project has been abandoned.”
Back in 2014, then coordinating minister of the economy and minister of finance and an Ogwashi-Uku daughter, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, decried the slow pace of work at the earth dam. According to a July 29, 2014 report by The Nigerian Voice online, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, while speaking after inspecting the project, said the dam was important to the community as the people had suffered acute shortage of water supply for decades. It was further revealed that, “The water level of Ogwashi-Uku is about 800 feet deep and all efforts by various federal and state agencies to provide boreholes had proved abortive for years.”
It might take the recent presidential gaffe to galvanise work towards the completion of the dam project. For in a dramatic turn following the media uproar over President Buhari’s false claim about the completion of the dam and other projects, a news report of December 21 in Delta State government-owned newspaper, The Pointer, screamed the headline: “Work Resumes At Ogwashi-Uku Dam”, with the rider: “As FG Injects N2bn.” The report filed by Innocent Osakwe claims that “About N2bn has been approved by the Federal Government for the completion of water Dam project at Ogwashi-Uku in Delta State.” The report continues: “Following the approval, the consultancy firm handling the project has mobilised to site located at Aboh-Ogwashi-Uku.” The report further states that, “one billion naira is to be made available to the construction company this year, the balance of one billion naira would be released next year” when “the project is expected to be completed.” The report concludes that the project is to be supervised by Owena River Basin Development Authority, Benin city, and that the secretary of Ogwashi-Uku Development Union (O.D.U), Mr. John Nwaekete, has responded positively to the new development.
So how did a project that was far from completion make it to the presidential list of infrastructural achievements under Mr. Muhammadu Buhari? More so, because the project was not even initiated by his administration. Well, the false claim may not be difficult to explain in a country where dead people make the list of federal appointments, and vetting of ghost workers on the wage list frequently leads to endless screening of retirees, including my 85-year old mum, some of whose colleagues sometimes faint or die while waiting in long queues under the blazing tropical sun or rains.
The capacity to cope with extremities has become second nature to Nigerians, and ironically the kind of public protests that one would expect from a people living under such inclement existential conditions are not forthcoming. Besides the lingering dam issue, another symptomatic infrastructural challenge the Ogwashi-Uku community has had to deal with is electricity. For close to one decade, the town was without electricity. Nigeria’s state-owned Power Holding Company of Nigeria Plc (PHCN Plc, a.k.a. NEPA) simply went away on leave (AWOL). The unbundling and privatisation of the state-owned electricity corporation and the introduction of electricity distribution companies (DISCOS) offered a glimmer of hope that power would be restored in Ogwashi-Uku and other communities in similar prolonged blackout situation across the country. Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) Plc emerged as the distribution company responsible for the retailing of electricity in Delta, Edo, Ekiti, and Ondo States.
Not long after it established its operations, rumours were rife in social media that BEDC was seeking N50 million from Ogwashians to repair the town’s broken electricity supply infrastructure. A letter I sent to the company’s official email address for confirmation or denial of the rumours was ignored. The chairman of Aniocha South local government area of which Ogwashi-Uku is the capital, Mr. Isaac Anwuzia, captures the scenario with understandable cynicism in a Facebook interview: “You know, the funniest thing is that unlike NEPA, these are companies that needed money to do everything, they are supposed to do it for us but because of purse or whatever, they are now telling us to do it for them for refund, so if we get the money they demand from us, they will refund it if they start billing. So, our role in this case, is to act as guarantor in this transaction and we are pursuing the issue vigorously. At Ogwashi-Uku, the O.D.U is involved, and they are collecting the required amount, from house to house, I think the amount is between N1000 – N2000. By the time we get that money, we will give it to the Company.”
Regrettably, the people’s self-help efforts and the resurgence of commitment to developing their own community without depending on government pale in significance to the pain they now feel about the president’s claim on the uncompleted dam project.
There are no confirmed estimates of the amount collected. But the town union reportedly raised about N9 million naira that was allegedly handed over to the electricity folks to restore power to the town. After fixing the power problem through self-help, the private company now bills the consumers, with no concrete plan of refunding the monies supposedly “lent” them by their customers. So, here’s a situation where local people become victims of some kind of IPO (Initial Public Offering) but with no shares offered to the stakeholders and contributors to the corporation that distributes electricity to the community with infrastructure bought by the community. Had the dam been completed, such victimhood situation would not have arisen in the first place, and power generated from the dam could have boosted electricity supply to the national grid, while supporting agriculture, which is the mainstay of the people, through irrigation.
Such is the corporate impunity that everyday Nigerians deal with and endure with no immediate avenues for recourse to justice. In a related development, the community recently undertook the renovation of the office complex of the Nigerian Police Force Area Command. The completed project was officially handed over to the new area commander, ACP Fidelis Osadume, on Tuesday, December 18, 2018.
Regrettably, the people’s self-help efforts and the resurgence of commitment to developing their own community without depending on government pale in significance to the pain they now feel about the president’s claim on the uncompleted dam project. Although my research assistant in the field, Mr. Ken Eneduwa-George, reports that a considerable percentage of the construction of the dam has been undertaken (see photographs taken on December 20), the project is yet to be completed, let alone being ready for commissioning.
Reacting to the news of President Buhari’s declaration that the construction of the dam had been completed, president-general of Ogwashi-Uku Development Association (ODA), Mr. Ndikanwu E. Ashinze, affirms in a message to the Adaigbo Patriots chatroom: “Following developments with conflicting reports on the Ogwashi-Uku Dam Project, on Sat 22nd Dec, 2018 between 5pm and 6.30pm, I led the ODA Management to Aboh Ogwashi for on-the-spot inspection of the Dam project. We met no Engr or workers on site but was led by the Okwabani of the community, Chief Onwuadiamu. No doubt, a lot has been done but a lot still needs to be done! The Ubu River has been “dammed” by the definition of damming, but THE PROJECT has not been completed! The necessary installations for Electricity generation (Turbine etc), Water generation (Water Treatment Plants etc), Irrigation etc are lacking. Collapsed structures necessary for water control are yet to be repaired. The access road no doubt has been awarded but remains uncompleted. Staff residential houses have been built but obviously need to be secured.”
Consequently, the community has renewed its appeal to the federal government to expedite work on the dam. There is no gainsaying the fact that, as Alphonsus Agborh Asa of Tribune newspaper reports, following an October 2016 tour of the dam construction site, the community wants government to complete the “N3.6 billion earth dam in Aboh-Ogwashi, in view of its importance to the development of the state.” Otherwise, in this silly season of electoral claims, counter claims, and a million promises, critics of Mr. Buhari may well be damning the President’s Dam.
Nduka Otiono, a writer and journalist, is professor of African Studies at Carleton University, Canada.
Photo credit: Ken Eneduwa-George.
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