OPINION: Governor Oborevwori’s Audacious Moves, By Enewaridideke Ekanpou 

By: Enewaridideke Ekanpou

I thought the audacity of development was a prerogative of some western rulers. I also thought the audacity of development was the prerogative of Angels in Delta State. It was the most naive thought from a village boy. I have just been given an educative nudge that Governor Sheriff Oborevwori is the author, the master, the doyen of audacity of development.

Oborevwori’s AUDACITY of development in Delta State is strikingly structured into four broad categorisations – infrastructural development, educational development, human capital development and security wakefulness. Developmentally, there are visible markers of Governor Oborevwori’s ‘lokpo’ steps in each of these categorisations. Governor Oborevwori journeys strategically across these four worlds without being more passionate about one categorisation than the other. It is like the prescription handed down by a medical doctor to which one sticks firmly like morning snails stuck to date palm trees in Oyangbene in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State.

Infrastructural development demands huge capital outlay. Fully aware of this, the first step of the governor of Delta State was to free the space for funds to flow abundantly. From a worrisome debt profile of N465.3 billion in Delta State, he reduced it to N249.2 billion which indicated a reduction by N216.1 equivalent to 46.4 in percentage. With a freed spaced strategically worked out by Governor Oborevwori which mapped his commitment to debt servicing, in 2024 he was able to make available N3.5 billion as a payment for counterpart funding for SUBEB.

On the strength of his strategic moves towards the creation of the space for funds to be freed for developmental mobility, Governor Oborevwori has on record 513 road projects that include Warri-Effurun flyovers, Ayakoromo bridge, Kwale-Beneku, Orere-Ewu, trans-Warri-Ode Itsekiri bridges and Asaba-Ughelli Express way and many other projects on the ongoing lane of construction. Drainages of 822.47 kilometres are being constructed in addition to various development projects in Dennis Osadenay University, Anwai-Asaba, Southern Delta University, Ozoro and Delta State Teaching Hospital. Besides the well-known special budgetary allocation of N2 billion to every local government area in the state for infrastructural development, Governor Oborevwori has freshly awarded meaningful development projects in the state. This tells in the continuum his story of audacity of development.

On the educational development categorisation of the governor, His Excellency Oborevwori has held everybody spellbound with his breathless payment of bursary awards to all students of Delta State origin in higher institutions in Nigeria from 2023 to date, except the 2025 bursary awards about to be paid after the formalities of registration and verification by the Delta State Bursary and Scholarship Board. Scholarships have been given to physically challenged students and the children of deceased civil servants of Delta State origin.

Statistically speaking, in the 2023/2024 academic session, 759 law students of Delta State origin have benefited from Governor Oborevwori’s financial assistance of N82 million naira paid individually to them. 32,028 students of Delta State origin in various institutions of higher learning have also benefited from Governor Oborevwori’s N713 million naira bursary awards in the 2023/2024 session while he has already given approval for payment of bursary awards to Delta students in higher institutions in Nigeria for the 2024/2025 academic session. Governor Oborevwori appears more ideologically situated by his pursuit of his educational vision for Deltans – an educational vision over which he has been applauded all over the state.

On the human capital border, Governor Oborevwori has created space for two thousand teachers to be employed in the state based on local government areas. In meaningful partnership with the African Development Bank, the Federal Government and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture through Special Agricultural Economic Zones, over forty jobs are being created in the state. These developmental efforts and others like bursary payments and SUBEB counterpart funding are strategically rooted in an audacious vision to guarantee human capital development in Delta State.

No meaningful development project can be executed in an environment plagued by insecurity. Moving proactively in this direction, Governor Oborevwori provided fifty-five utility vehicles to the Joint Task Force in the state named Operation Sweep. This is to enhance the capacity of JTF to tackle security issues in collaboration with the Delta State Waterways and Land Security Committee led by Chief Boro Opudu. Being proactive, the atmosphere required for development projects to sail without any human-made jinx and disruption had long been created by the governor of Delta State.

Even in the provision of health services for Deltans and prudent management of state resources, Governor Oborevwori has distinguished himself by every standard like an eagle that often flies higher than other birds across the length and breadth of the sky. Governor Oborevwori audaciously features in developmental terms in any aspect of life that brings smiles upon the faces of Deltans.

Two years have gone by since Governor Oborevwori sailed to the Government House from which he daily watches over Delta State with administrative competence, political sagacity and vigilance . In all these two years the developmental rhythms from Government House are meaningful and listenable. This is made possible by the governor’s audacious touch on core development matters that border on the happiness of Deltans.

Conventional wisdom teaches that a good thing is always kept and treated like gold. Governor Oborevwori has developmentally become a gold. For the Oborevwori gold to be mined and used judiciously for the joy of Deltans, the gold mining duration merits eight years without interruption. For the sustainability of Governor Oborevwori’s AUDACITY of development felt in every part of Delta State in infrastructural, educational, human capital and security terms, His Excellency Sheriff Oborevwori must be returned in 2027 without opposition. Since Governor Oborevwori has audaciously proved in two years that he is the embodiment of unbiased all-round development in Delta State, Deltans must audaciously prove in corresponding degree that Governor Sheriff Oborevwori is returned to the Government House in 2027 without opposition for a seamless sustainability of his universally applauded audacity of development in Delta State.

At this moment Governor Oborevwori deserves a graceful apology from those who fought against his democratic emergence as a governor with over fifty cases in various courts out of pure malediction and ignorance. That Governor Oborevwori is one of the performing governors in the South South geopolitical zone who is developmentally audacious, yet wronged by those who had fought him politically without a just cause, now occupies the lips of every Deltan. Though the governor has forgiven and let go of everything, they should tell the world how wrong they were at that time and affirm their current changed position by being part of the drums for the return journey of Governor Oborevwori in 2027 as this will create the needed space for the sustainability of the governor’s audacity of development in Delta State.

Ekanpou writes from Akparemogbene, Delta State.