News

OPINION: Interrogating The Simple Agenda, Erosion And Flooding In Edo

Published

4 years ago

July 24, 2020

Don Ofure Osehobo

In most parts of Benin City, today, the fear of rains is the beginning of wisdom. The reason is that whenever it rains, almost every part of the city gets flooded and residences are turned into swamps; some for days and weeks and others, months. As a result, tales of woe fill the lips of most residents as flood waters envelope their homes, overwhelm the surroundings, and destroy properties like cars, and household items like furniture among others.

Few years ago, the Edo State government revived the Benin City Masterplan and articulated the Storm water project to deal with the perennial problems of flooding and erosion. The project was designed to channel the flood waters through artificial underground canals. However, Governor Godwin Obaseki rather than continuing with the project, abandoned it. Unfortunately too, the PDP of which he is now a member has never articulated any plan for the flood menace in the state capital or the other communities. It will be therefore be disastrous for the state, if the party finds itself back in power.

Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, the Edo APC governorship candidate in this year’s election has a solution for this erosion and flood menace, which is a source of concern, not only for residents in the state capital but the entire state. He has aptly captioned and enunciated it under the heading, “Infrastructure Development and Urban Renewal Programme” in his Manifesto of Hope called Simple Agenda. With this plan, the new Edo state with Pastor Ize-Iyamu as Chief Executive, will adopt an integrated approach with new ways of building public works systems that is both cost and resource effective.

As part of his commitment, he will review the Benin Storm Water Project for speedy completion to ensure that the problem of perennial flooding in the state capital is taken care of. In addition, major erosion reclamation projects and sites in the state will be diligently tackled to their completion stage while his government honours all outstanding obligations to the World Bank and other relevant agencies.

This is will be backed up with the provision of both primary and secondary drains to accompany roads, to ensure the proper channelization of floodwaters to appropriate receptacles instead of the present practice where floodwaters are directed to residential or inhabited areas .

Towards this end, all the major roads and streets within Benin City and the 18 local government headquarters will be asphalted and in most cases, accompanied with walkways, drains and streetlights, in an unprecedented urban renewal scheme. The walkways plan to include bicycle tracks so as to encourage cycling, as most distances within the metropolis can be embarked on with bicycles as roads should be for all users and not motorists alone. In what the Simple Agenda envisage, even car owners would wish to own bicycles. This also will infuse a new culture for the environment and lead to bicycle plants/job creation and a reduction in fuel consumption. The idea is to bring what has worked well in China, Holland and the Scandinavian countries to Edo state. This will also help in no small way to erase the misconception that bicycles are for the poor.

On the reconstruction and rehabilitation of existing road networks in the state, the Simple Agenda objective is to bring many of Edo’s neglected communities back to life by building strategic roads, to link them with Highways or Express roads so they serve as alternative routes, when necessary.

As for Local Government roads, the agenda has a policy plan for collaboration between Local Government Council Chairmen and the State Government. This will be achieved by restoring autonomy to Local Governments in Edo state, so they can be encouraged to spend significant percentage of their allocations on road rehabilitation. In more specific terms, adequate funding will be extended to roads and drains at the local government areas, such that 10km of asphalted roads with accompanying road infrastructure will be constructed in each of the 18 Local Government Councils. Also the State Government under the leadership of Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu will construct an average of 300km of roads to link major towns with the state capital. In addition, under the Simple Agenda, communities shall be encouraged to embark on self-help projects to which the LGAs and the state government shall contribute meaningfully.

Pastor Ize-Iyamu as a youth, saw this strategy working successfully during the period Dr Samuel Ogbemudia’s administration held sway in the good old days of Bendel State. His government will resuscitate this approach and take it to the highest level of community awareness and active participation.

With regards to all existing road construction projects, Pastor Ize-Iyamu hopes to complete all of them. With the Simple Agenda, he deliberately plan to create new towns and settlements around Benin City. He also plans a second bridge to link Upper St. Saviour and Ikpoba Hill not only to reduce traffic bottlenecks on the Ikpoba Hill axis and Murtala Muhammed Way junction of Sokponba road but also to boost commercial and industrial activities in the area.

The Simple Agenda also contains the plan to extend the Airport Road beyond the Iyekogba bridge to Evbuodia Utagba Village to join Ekenwan Barrack Road by Ojemai Farms. This means that all vehicles coming to Ring Road from Ekenwan Barrack, Ugbine, and even Ugbiyoko axis will access the Ring Road through his extended Evbuodia/Airport Road.

To ensure that all the projects for erosion and flood control, road construction and rehabilitation remain in good conditions all year round, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu will send a bill for the establishment of the Edo State Road Maintenance Agency to the State legislature. When established the agency, will have full complements of earth moving equipment at its state capital headquarters and all zonal offices in each of the three Senatorial Districts. The agency in collaboration with the State Ministry of Works, will have full responsibility for continuous road maintenance and rehabilitation across the state. The objective is reduce cases of road failures and the huge costs of fixing them.

From the above, it is obvious that the objective of the infrastructure development and urban renewal programme in the Simple Agenda is to bequeath to Edo state, durable physical structures and facilities that will promote decent living standards. Moreover, the deliberate policy is to eliminate waste and bequeath a state-of-the-art infrastructure across the state that will be affordable to maintain so that future generations of Edolites can utilize it and be proud of it.

Ofure Osehobo, a journalist writes from Benin City.

News

Three Suspected Pipeline Vandals Caught In Edo

Published

6 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Editor

Photo of the vandalised pipeline

The Edo State Police Command has arrested three pipeline vandals in the Obazagbon community of the Orhiomwon Local Government Area.

The suspects include Jackson Aluche, aged 45; Oke Okoro, aged 30; and Oluchukwu Chukwuma, aged 18.

It was gathered that the incident occurred on April 14 at about 10:30 a.m.

When contacted by our correspondent, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Chidi Nwabuzor, confirmed the incident.

He added that the suspects were caught siphoning crude oil and smashing a PAN Ocean Oil Corporation pipeline.

Nwabuzor noted that the suspects admitted to the crime, claiming that one AKA Doctor had hired them to carry out the deed and that they would be charged with court charges.

He said, “On April 14, 2024, at about 1030 a.m., the operatives of the State Criminal Investigation Department, while acting on credible intelligence, arrested three suspects, namely, Jackson Aluche, 45 years old; Oke Okoro, 30 years old; and Oluchukwu Chukwuma, 18 years old, at Obazagbon community in Orhiomwon Local Government Area of Edo State.

“They were caught breaking a crude oil pipeline for Pan Ocean Oil Corporation and siphoning crude oil. The suspects made statements and confessed to the crime, saying that they were employed by AKA Doctor to carry out the act. Suspects will soon be charged in court.”

News

Cultists Arrested For Invading Anambra Hotel With Charms

Published

6 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Editor

No fewer than 11 members of a suspected cult group allegedly terrorising the people of Ihembosi community in Ekwusigo Local Government Area of Anambra State have been arrested by operatives of the Zone 13 Police Headquarters, Ukpo, Anambra State.

The suspects were arrested for allegedly invading the premises of Las Vegas Hotels Limited at Ubahu village in the area.

About 12 other members of the group are said to be currently on the run as the police operatives are still trailing them.

According to a police source, who refused to be mentioned because he was not authorised to speak for the agency, the arrest of the suspects was carried out on Monday, following a strongly worded petition to the Assistant Inspector-General of Police in-charge of Zone 13 Police Command, Godwin Aghaulor. The Zone 13 Police Command controls police formations in Anambra, Enugu and some parts of Ebonyi states.

Aghaulor, who confirmed the arrests of the suspects in his office, on Thursday, said the police would carry out discreet investigations into the matter to ascertain the motives behind the action, while a manhunt had been launched to apprehend the fleeing gangsters.

The Proprietor of Las Vegas Hotels Limited, Chief Omenife Onwuatu, had through his legal counsel, PJN Azubuike, petitioned the AIG seeking his intervention to curb the menace of the cultist group who he said went to the extreme of invading his hotel on March 10, 2024 with about 12 motorcycles, charms, cudgels, cutlasses, axes and other dangerous weapons and terrorised the owners, management and staff of the hotel, threatening to kill anyone at sight.

Onwuatu, who is also the Chairman of Ubahu village, had earlier warned the group to stop performing rituals in front of the stream in the area and to relocate their shrine to its base but his warning did not go down well with the suspects whom he simply identified as “idol worshippers, who earn their living through rituals.”

In the petition dated April 16, 2024, entitled, “Threat to life, cultism, terrorism, ritualism, threat of arson, conspiracy, forcible entry, trial by ordeal, assault, malicious damage and conduct likely to cause breach of peace,” the hotel proprietor lamented that during the invasion, the suspects forced open his hotel gate and deposited the charms at the entrance and premises of the hotel.

The petition read in part, “They chanted war songs, threatened to burn down the hotel and its premises, performed so many incantations and rituals in front of the hotel and its premises and passed death sentences on the owners and occupants of our client and thereafter escaped.”

“Before the invasion, the suspects had earlier in the day unlawfully assembled themselves in various locations in the town where they organised and planned the invasion, assembled their weapons, demonstrated their charms, chanted war songs and passed death sentences on the leadership of the community before setting out to invade the hotel premises which they variously threatened to burn down.”

The petition noted that to make matters worse, the suspects captured their atrocities in a video and sent in to the internet in order to display their impunity, intimidate the operators and customers of the hotel and put extreme fear in them to force them to abandon the premises or come and negotiate with them.

“The negative effect of this is that the Managing Director of the hotel, other directors, managers and staff, as well as the customers, were thrown into extreme fear for their dear lives. While the customers of the hotel at the time of the incident hurriedly checked out, others who heard or saw the incident completely avoided the hotel and cancelled their bookings and the Goodwill of the hotel proprietor and her fortune were maliciously destroyed and damaged,” it stated.

The petitioner therefore requested the AIG to use his good offices to apprehend all the members of the gang and recover their tools and implements to bring them to book and nip in the bud their plans to kill the hotel operators and leaders of the community and burn down the premises of Las Vegas Hotels Limited.

As of Monday, the day the suspects were arrested, pleas by counsel for the suspects, Ibuchi Ewuzue for the police to release the suspects on bail were turned down as the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the Zonal Criminal Investigations Department, was said to have ordered that the suspects should remain in detention until after investigations.
PUNCH

News

LASTMA, Viju Officials Clash Leaves 10 Injured

Published

6 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Editor

There was pandemonium, on Tuesday, after a fight broke out among some officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority and those of Viju Company at the Oba Akran Avenue area of Ikeja, the state capital.

It was gathered that the incident occurred at midnight, resulting in multiple injuries to victims.

It was also learnt that one of the Viju Company’s motorboys had been shot, while others sustained hand stab wounds.

A video sent to our correspondent showed injured victims with blood on the hands, faces, and clothing of the LASTMA officials and Viju workers.

Speaking with The PUNCH, a driver at Viju, simply identified as Seyi, stated that soldiers, LASTMA officials, and touts came to impound their trucks at midnight and, in the process, stabbed his hand when he decided to fight back.

“We were sleeping on top of the truck, and we were not aware of anything. Some boys were just shouting that they were already parking the vehicles. We approached them and asked why they would be impounding vehicles at odd hours. LASTMA officials, soldiers, and touts who came were up to 100. When I decided to fight back, they used an axe to stab my back. I was surprised that soldiers came for such an operation.”

Another Viju official, Issa Tijani, said they had threatened to send the arrested individuals to Kirikiri Prison, adding that they must pay N700,000 to free their vehicles.

He said, “They did not just raid Viju Company but also the whole neighbourhood. I wonder how they were sure that the people who were involved were the staff members of Viju. The issue on the ground currently is that they told them that they would carry all those guys to Kirikiri Prison for no reason because, firstly, they are not sure if they are the ones. Also, they told them to come and bail their vehicles for N700,000, which I think is not fair, and it is suspicious that they came at midnight. They also broke a bottle on my head

A driver at Viju Company, Ismalia Asuma said, “I did not do anything for the LASTMA officials. We were sleeping on top of trucks when they came to raid. They came with soldiers, the task force, and ‘agberos’ (touts) to attack them. They even shot me in the back because I did not do anything.”

When contacted, the Public Relations Officer, LASTMA, Adebayo Taofeeq, said the residents filed a petition complaining about Viju trucks impeding the road, adding that 54 vehicles were impounded in the area around 12 a.m.

“We received a petition from the residents about the Viju milk truck drivers blocking the road left and right and turning the dual lane into one lane. We even wrote a petition to the Lagos State Parking Authority. We acted on the direction of the Honourable Special Adviser on Transportation, Sola Giwa. By getting there on April 23 by midnight, we were able to remove 54 trucks.”

He added that some miscreants attacked the agency officials and that five individuals were arrested.

“After we completed that assignment, they went ahead to mobilise miscreants from the Agege area, and as a result of that, they injured seven of our officials. Our men did not use guns at all; the only thing we used was teargas, and we do not know if the task force people were present there.

“While LASTMA operational vehicles were vandalised, 54 Viju milk trucks were evacuated during the enforcement operations. The police, working alongside LASTMA, arrested five of these individuals (Falomo Oluwafemi, Afeniyi Stephen, Olamide Adekunle, Chukwu Guaja Eze, and Adeshina Sulaimon) and seized various weapons, including broken bottles, iron rods, charms, knives, and cutlasses.

“The injured LASTMA officers were promptly taken to the hospital for medical attention. Hon. Sola Giwa, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Transportation, stated that the arrested individuals would be prosecuted by the government as a deterrent to others.”

All efforts to get the reaction of the Director, Press and Public Affairs, Lagos State Taskforce, Gbadeyan Abdulraheem, proved abortive, as he did not respond to calls and messages sent to his phone as of the time of filing this.