Time to Celebrate or Condemn Ogbuku over the Akparemogbene River Canalisation Abandoned by NDDC?, By Enewaridideke Ekanpou

By: Enewaridideke
Ekanpou

Between the rulers and the ruled there should always be a functionally beneficial engagement – fundamentally as an accredited periodic ritual to interrogate the performance claims of office holders in Nigeria and beyond. Conventionally speaking, political or elective office holders in Nigeria should be either publicly celebrated or condemned over their performance in office. This must be routinely done to inspire more performance or to provoke immediate expulsion from office. To do this, one must not wait endlessly for improved performance still anticipated.I think the tide has come full circle for Dr. Samuel Ogbuku to be publicly celebrated or condemned viewed against the background of the developmentally enslaved Akparemogbene people.

Akparemogbene community groans daily from the afflictions of a major NDDC-abandoned project. Viewed comparatively, the sufferings of the Israelites in the hands of King Pharaoh of Egypt pale into insignificance when one sees the plight of Akparemogbene people developmentally suffocated by NDDC. Appallingly, there are narratives that portray NDDC as a commission that has intentionally shed the image of transaction in preference for the image of transformation through the execution of meaningful projects in the Niger Delta region. Without hesitation, the managing Director of NDDC is associated with this parroted story of transformation. Is this a true reflection of the Niger Delta region where the weeping Akparemogbene community is part of?

Centred on Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, the Managing Director of NDDC, two compellingly conclusive positions struggle for a space to be decreed as an authority on his claimed performance history in NDDC. Ogbuku merits either celebration or condemnation premised on the currently abandoned Akparemogbene Canalisation Project in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State. The celebration or condemnation of Ogbuku must be enthusiastically done with a vuvuzela for transmission of the right message to all the creeks and tides of the Niger Delta region. This approach must be seen as a measure and guide of public pronouncements on performance of office holders towards the evaluation of the truth value publicly claimed.

Akparemogbene lived with the economic discomfort of a ‘fordable creek’ for many decades without developmental salvage from anyone. Through the legislative intervention and miracle of Rt. Hon. Nicholas Mutu, the representative of Bomadi/Patani Constituency in the House of Representatives, the Akparemogbene creek was canalised by NDDC on 23 February 2019, covering some kilometres that still left major part of the creek untouched developmentally. The Canalisation stopped at a point in the river after some kilometres had been covered in the project. It was explained that the contract would be continued after the payment of the contractor who allegedly came to do the work without NDDC’s mobilisation because the contractor was eager to address the developmental challenges of Akparemogbene people.

The Akparemogbene canalisation is a project that economically benefits various communities like Oyangbene, Ekameta, Okwagbe, Egbo-Ideh, Ogriagbene, Ayakoromo, Amasuomo, Edegbene, Ogbeinama, Akugbene, Eseimogbene, Esanma, Egolegbene, Ebeingbene and many others in Burutu, Bomadi and Ughelli South Local Government Areas of Delta State which depend on the river as a commercial route for palm oil , ogogoro gin, fish and wood trade. The part left undeveloped by NDDDC still remains a nightmare for these communities using the Akparemogbene River for commercial engagements.

Akparemogbene River Canalisation Project is historically one of the projects that demonstrates the developmental commitment of NDDC but the saddening part of this story is that NDDC has not paid the contractor to come back and continue the job from where it stopped. It is mind-boggling and painful NDDC has not paid the contractor who executed this commendable contract; it is also painful NDDC has not completely canalised the entire Akparemogbene River – which was the expectation of the people. Both the contractor and the Akparemogbene people daily shed tears because NDDC appears to have deleted them from their developmental radar.

Painful, saddening and provoking as the abandoned canalisation project is, Victor Olali sounds accidentally placatory in his article, ‘Interrogating Ogbuku’s 50th Birthday Celebration’, published in the Vanguard newspaper of 2025 when he says: ‘But not Ogbuku. He chose a different path. A path of value, decorum, and compassionate reflection on humanity, especially on the well-being of the Niger Delta region’ (22). If compassionate reflection on the ‘well-being’ of Niger Deltans is a true characterisation of Ogbuku, devoid of sophistry, he should extend his compassionate reflection to the people of Akparemogbene and promptly revisit the abandoned canalisation project in a pragmatic language that bears resemblance to King Dr. Izonebi Alfred’s healthy exploitation of music to revive the forgotten core Ijaw traditional songs of Kuro-endi, Ball-ere, Birifou and others. If Alfred could bring back the first generation of Ijaw musicians through his revivalism movement musically anchored, Ogbuku could do better in bringing back the Akparemogbene River Canalisation contract through speedy investigative thrusts. A characteristically compassionate man is always pragmatic in approach to developmental issues after the ritual of being publicly awakened to it.

Akparemogbene people now go everywhere with swollen eyes got from tears shed over their abandoned river canalisation project even in the midst of intellectual radiations from Olali that Ogbuku is an intellectually charged man whose thinking carries vision and originality when it borders on how he has reformed NDDC. Whenever my thoughts wander to Akparemogbene River Canalisation Project, I am always tempted to condemn Dr. Ogbuku but for the placatory tone of Olali who says again that ‘Ogbuku deserves to be celebrated, and not condemned, for the bold reforms he has brought into NDDC operations, wheeling the interventionist agency from transaction to transformation’ (22).

From 2019 till today the Akparemogbene River Canalisation Project had been abandoned by NDDC. It is possible the abandoned file of this project has not been brought to Ogbuku famed for developmentally moving NDDC away from transaction to transformation. For a man projected as compassionate, visionary, pragmatic and intellectually charged, I don’t want to align myself with condemnation of Ogbuku yet until he has been intimated with the developmental plight of Akparemogbene people – which has been already done by this communication. Doubts about the true developmental characterisation of Ogbuku are likely to vapourise if core development issues like the one highlighted here could be promptly addressed without any rigmarole.

The narrative on Ogbuku intellectually pushed to the public that he should be celebrated, rather than being condemned, deserves an intentional sustainability space specifically created through pragmatic response and engagement of core developmental matters drawn attention to here. If the narrative that Ogbuku should be celebrated be sustained, he should create the atmosphere for revival of the Akparemogbene River Canalisation Project through the payment of the contractor for continuation of the job from where it was stopped. The Akparemogbene people and the writer here will not be comforted until this canalisation matter is promptly addressed.

Timely conscientised in a cautionary language by Olali to celebrate Ogbuku over his reforms in NDDC, rather than condemn him on impulsive wings, we are eagerly waiting for him. Waiting for the coming of Ogbuku to Akparemogbene through corresponding pragmatic response to the abandoned dream of development in Akparemogbene, I wish you a belated 50th birthday celebration. This ‘well-intentioned’ birthday wish is inextricably tied to the hope that Akparemogbene would become the experimentation space for your famed developmentally visionary and compassionate nature coupled with the widely publicised metamorphosis of NDDC from transaction into transformation.

It must be admitted that the strategic movement from transaction to transformation in NDDC driven by vision, is no mean achievement credited to the NDDC boss by Olali. This intellectually moving position of Olali on the NDDC boss is searching for more solid wooden framework of believability through pragmatic engagement of highlighted development matters, particularly the anticipated resurrection of the abandoned Akparemogbene River Canalisation Project.

Dr. Ekanpou writes from Akparemogbene, Delta State.