June 11, (THEWILL)- Otuoke community of Ogbia Council Area of Bayelsa State has berated the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for alleged abandonment of infrastructural projects awarded in the community.
Speaking with THEWILL during an assessment tour of projects awarded and executed by the commission in the community, the area’s Community Development Committee (CDC) Chairman, Pastor Emmanuel Egede, said the interventionist agency left incomplete a number of internal roads and the construction of a bridge at the Ewokiri axis of the community awarded no fewer than a decade ago.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan hails from Otuoke.
THEWILL gathered that Otuoke, host community of the Federal University in Bayelsa State, is located in the Ogbia central geographical area of Ogbia kingdom and borders no fewer than eight other sister autonomous communities.
Egede hinted that the commission also abandoned a water project earlier awarded for the use of the community sometime between 2012 and 2014 respectively.
The CDC boss, who reiterated the need for timely completion of these projects, called on the commission to take a cursory look into its records of contracts awarded for the community with a view to completing them.
He stated that following the fast-rising cosmopolitan nomenclature of the community, resulting from the existence of the Federal University in the area, the state government should also put into consideration the takeover, functionality and maintenance of the urban water project executed by the Federal Government in the area for the provision of potable water for students and others living in the community and its adjoining areas.
“This community has done well for Nigeria, but we wonder why the NDDC would abandon projects in this community,” he lamented.
“We’ve a bridge awarded over a decade ago by the NDDC that has been abandoned in this community. It’s in a part of the community called Ewokiri. And there are also internal roads projects abandoned here,” he added. “For the Bayelsa State Government, we’ve written them and we’ve even met the Commissioner for Water Resources on the takeover, functionality and maintenance of the already executed but state-abandoned Federal Urban water project in the community.”
Similarly, the Otuoke CDC Chairman decried the dilapidated state of the Otuoke-Onuebum-Yenagoa link road.
He described the road as a death trap, calling on the state government and Federal Government to save the lives of commuters and other Nigerians plying the failed road.
The Otuoke-Onuebum-Yenagoa link road has been in a complete state of comatose for long, making drivers and passengers plying it go through unbearable hurdles on journeys to and from Yenagoa, Otuoke and other neighbouring communities of the state.
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