Let us, for this week, forget the rising wave of insecurity, the massive unemployment and the increasingly dilapidated public infrastructure that have become the reality of daily living in the country. Let us forget the politicians, the calls for restructuring and the cacophony on the way to 2023. Let us consider an innocuous report that points out one of the reasons why Nigeria has been all motion and so little movement in its developmental strides in the last few decades.
I am writing about the recent report on the failed N5.9 billion Ogbia Water Project in ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s Otuoke hometown in Ogbia local government area of Bayelsa State. I had had occasion to visit some parts of Bayelsa State, including Otuoke, a few years ago and one of the lingering memories I have of the place is that of both old and young persons carrying buckets of water along the roads. The recent report on the failed water project in the area has put that scenario in its proper perspective.
It tells the story of how a whopping N5.9 billion was expended on the project by the Muhammadu Buhari administration, possibly on account of Jonathan, only for the water plant which was launched with much fanfare on September 9, 2016 to stop producing water only a few weeks after the ceremony. The Central Ogbia Water Supply Project was designed as a regional water supply scheme with the capacity to produce 500m3/hr of water for the benefit of over a hundred thousand people in Jonathan’s Otuoke and 12 other communities in the local government.
The Minister of Water Resources at the time, Engr. Suleiman Adamu, had spoken loftily of the federal government’s plan to tackle the menace of water-borne diseases in the area and to complete all abandoned water projects in the country, in line with the government’s roadmap on water resources. Senator Ben Murray-Bruce, who was then the senator representing Bayelsa East in the Senate, had also at the occasion expressed optimism that the project would be properly maintained for the benefit of the people.
But alas, the project that was to serve 13 communities, and be extended to Yenagoa, the state capital, is no more. It suffered a sudden death that is characteristic of many government projects that are not handled with the required will and commitment to make them survive in the country. Like many of the abiku projects in different parts of the country, that project did not live up to its billing and the humongous funds committed to its execution have sadly gone down the drain. The project is as dead as a dodo in the name of politicking and the ordinary people of the local government are the losers in this unfortunate government magic and abracadabra.
Instead of water running in the homes of the people, the news coming out of this water plant is that it has been overgrown by weeds and its administrative buildings “rented” out to interested persons to live in. Is this not a tragedy of monumental proportions for the healthcare sector in the state? In these days when all manner of water-borne diseases have become an albatross, it is sad that so much money committed to the laudable project has been allowed to go down the drain.
It is because of developments like these that Nigeria does not seem to be getting anywhere in its efforts at transformation. Instead of all administrations to do their little bits, which would be built on by succeeding ones, what we have is a legacy of abandoned projects because of politicking with the welfare of the people, and with each administration unprepared to commit funds to the maintenance of projects that were not initiated by it, for one reason or the other.
This unpardonable waste of public funds should not be allowed to continue. At this time that so much money is needed to attend to desperate needs in different sectors of national life, especially education, health and security, we cannot continue to pour funds into projects only for them not to meet the needs for which they were designed and executed. Now, people only go the Ogbia water project site with buckets to fetch water from its giant tanks, when they should have such water flowing in taps in their homes. Even the tanks are almost fully covered with weeds. Some people also testified that they walk several kilometres from different communities to get to the water project site to meet their water needs. Even the generator set up at the site has become dilapidated. There is even no government presence or guards guarding the place.
Interestingly, the Otuoke Community Development Committee is said to have rented out all the rooms of the facility at a cost of 30,000 per year. If there is any need for a proof at all that Nigeria is a joke and a near irredeemable country, this seeming takeover and renting out of the facilities of an abandoned government project is one of such. This, indeed, is the stuff of which comedies are made.
In this era of change, things ought to be done differently. The interest of the people should be the first consideration of the government in everything, and not personal aggrandizement or attempting to settle personal scores with government projects. The report that the plant was abandoned by the state governor to express his displeasure with former President Goodluck Jonathan does not paint a good picture at all. Projects should not be maintained at the pleasure of anyone, no matter how highly placed.
It is this negative mindset that also affected the Port Harcourt Airport for a long time. The airport remained an eyesore because of the politicking between the state governor and the then Minister of Aviation, with the people of the state and the whole country as losers as the airport was at the time rated among the worst airports in the world by a global agency. Mercifully, that issue has been resolved and the airport was given a new look.
Now that national attention has been drawn to the plight of the intended beneficiaries of the water plant at Ogbia, both the federal and state authorities should put politicking aside and work towards the resuscitation of the project. The interest of the people should be paramount at this time and the huge funds that were committed to the scheme should also be considered. If, indeed, N5.9bn was genuinely committed to this scheme, and it still has its basic infrastructure in place, it should not cost too much money to bring it back on track to meet the needs of the people for potable water. Let the Ogbia Water Plant live again.