ORUBEBE AND THE NIGER DELTA MINISTRY: WHAT IS THE REPORT CARD? people had clapped and danced when the late President Musa Yar’adua created the Ministry of the Niger Delta on September 10, 2008. The belief at the time was that, in no time, the region which had serially suffered criminal neglect from past governments will begin to sing a new song, given that an entire ministry was now to drive its development index.At the time, the substantive minister was Chief Ufot Ekaette, while Orubebe was the Minister of state in the ministry. Nineteen months after, Orubebe was appointed the substantive minister on April 6 2010, after Yar’adua’s death. From that time till last month, Orubebe had headed the ministry.That means that he was in office as Minister of the Niger Delta for nearly four years. what added value did Orubebe bring to the life of Niger Delta people? Did orubebe perform ? No he has not perform .But rather than concentrate on the East- West road, Orubebe seemed more interested, at the time, in circumscribing the Coastal road project into his ministry, even though a parastatal of the ministry, Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), had handled the preliminary works on the project before he was made minister.From the time of his appointment as substantive minister, Orubebe had fully operated the budget of the ministry for three years (2011-2013). What did the budgetary provisions in those years translate to for the people of the region?In 2009, the ministry got N51 billion, and in 2010, got N86.2 billion and N55.2billion in 2011 while in 2012 got 59.7billion. Last year, the ministry got N63.4 Billion. Where have all the money gone? A few skill acquisition centres were established (largely in Ijaw-speaking areas), but offered not more than shallow “computer training programmes’, just like run-of-the-mill Business Centres. and most of the computer were second hand imported from Ghana. what are Orubebe’s credentials that will boost his campaign when the time starts .
Posted on: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 12:18:50 +0000
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