- Idle youths rob, rape young girls searching for where to charge phones at night
- Economic activities grounded as affected people flee communities
Social vices are on the increase in many Niger Delta communities following the absence of power supply, which has caused many able bodied youths in the affected areas to lose their means of livelihood. Kaani, Bara-ama and Ayetoro in Rivers, Bayelsa and Ondo states respectively are some of the affected communities. Different kinds of power project contracts have been awarded in some of the communities but ended up not done at all or partially executed and abandoned. Idle youths hiding under the cover of darkness have resorted to unleashing terror on innocent people, especially young girls who are raped and left to nurse their wounds, INNOCENT DURU reports.
Kaani, a suburb of Khaana Local Government Area in oil-rich Rivers State, is fast becoming a land of jobless people, especially the youth, following the absence of power supply in the community. Since the community came into existence till date, the people have never enjoyed electricity.
The ugly development, according to findings, has forced many inhabitants whose vocations are power-dependent to close shops. The ugly trend, it was learnt, has thrown up an army hoodlums who take joy in unleashing terror on the people, especially young girls who are raped and inflicted with injuries.
“There has never been power supply here in Kaani. We have never even seen electricity cable before,” a youth leader, Mbani Friday Barilule, said in a voice laced with anger.
Where there is no light, he said, “it is difficult for you to send your daughter to buy something after sunset.
“But in a rural environment like ours, we don’t have an option because if you don’t send your daughter, who are you going to send to help you get one thing or the other?
The youth leader regretted that many young girls have been sexually abused by idle young men that absence of power supply in the area has continued to breed.
He said: “There have been rising incidents of rape in the community. I have personally taken some survivors to the hospital. I have also taken some cases to the police station.
“I can vividly recall three of such cases. One of them involved a little girl who was asked by her mother to help her buy something from a provision store. The owner of the shop asked her to come inside and started dipping his finger into her private parts.
“The girl was a friend to the man’s granddaughter. The old man later asked one of his sons to go and give drugs to the girl.
“The family took the girl aged between 11 and 12 years to a chemist for an injection, and that was where I came in. The girl was not sick, so why give her an injection and what kind of injection are you people giving to her in the absence of her parents?
“I went to Bori Police Station to lodge a complaint and the DPO kindly gave me two vans to arrest the man.
“The second one was a clear case of rape on a girl in the evening. It is difficult to see young girls move around in the evenings except the ones that are not under their parents’ control.
“The ones that are not under parental control are prone to being sexually abused and they often have nobody to speak for them.
“For many people in the community, rape has become a norm.
“When I took the old man to the police station, the family was asking me if he was the only one that had done such in the community.
“Their reaction made me to feel that the trend has become a normal thing in the area.”
Our findings showed that the embattled community had had its hope raised a number of times about the area being electrified, but none has materialised.
One of such occasions was during the military regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (rtd). The government had raised the hope of the people of Kaani when the then Directorate of Food and Rural Infrastructure (DFFRI), mounted electric poles in the community to provide power for the people. The project was later abandoned, dashing the hope of the people.
In 2017, the immediate past governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, during the celebration of the state’s Golden Jubilee, had vowed that his administration would embark on an aggressive rural electrification scheme in a bid to revive the rural economy.
Then, Wike, through his Chief of Staff Chukwuemeka Woke, had said that the state government believed that rural electrification was key to stimulating the economies of the rural communities. He revealed that the state government had set up a high-powered committee to interface with a major independent power producer to electrify key areas and facilities in the state so as to ensure uninterrupted power supply to major businesses and government facilities. Many years down the line, and till he left office, nothing has changed about the plight of Kaani people.
Our correspondent stumbled on a document directing the Niger Delta Development Commission to carry out power projects in Kaani 1 and 2. The project, said to worth about N248,365,200 was scheduled to be executed in 2021, but nothing of such has taken place, thus increasing criminal activities and forcing many people to leave the community.
A member of Kaani community, who gave his name simply as Freedom, said he heard about the NDDC project and some others but it all ended as a talk show.
Freedom said: “We don’t know anything called power supply except you have a generator in your house.
“There was a time the former chairman promised to give us electricity, but that was not done before he left.
“I also heard of a power contract by the NDDC, but nothing came out of it.”
Lamenting how the situation in the area has affected him, he said: “I do need power supply for my work.
“I do mobile computer services and I need power to do this. Now all the money we make goes into running and maintaining power generator.
“People without power cannot function.”
He also corroborated Mbari’s remark about incidents of rape in the community, saying:
“Some of the girls are raped while going to charge phones in somebody’s house. Some of them are attacked and have their phones stolen by the bad boys while returning from where they had gone to charge them.
Also decrying their plight, Bari, another member of the community, said he was one of the people badly hit by the absence of power supply in the area.
“I need power supply badly for my business but there is no power supply in the community till now. Darkness pervades everywhere once it is night. It is only God that can help us.
“Some people have left the community because of the challenges of power supply and attacks by hoodlums,” he said.
On the incidence of rape, he said:
“I wish you could use your eyes to see the implications of absence of power supply in the area. There have been cases of rape and violent attacks. I can point to about four persons that I know to have been raped and their cases are with the police.”
He noted that “the guys perpetrating this evil see it as a way of life. There is a way you will say something about the ugly development and they will come for you.
“One of the guys that used to lead the gang of rapists was killed recently but there are other ones still involved in the criminal act.
“The hoodlums went to a church and whisked a girl away. They may not kill her but they will rape her and collect her valuables.
“This is a community where you cannot see someone walking ahead of you. If there is solar power, you would see somebody afar and know what is happening.”
He added that rape survivors are inflicted with injuries but “they incidentally are not taken to the hospital to check if they have diseases. Some of the parents don’t have the means and/or not knowledgeable about it. They will just give home treatment to the girl and that will be all.
“Every parent in the community has warned their daughters against moving about aimlessly.
“I have a grown up daughter but I will never send her out once it is 5pm except I will go with her. If she drops our phone where we used to charge it, it is the next day that she will go and pick it. It is that bad.
The monarch of the community, according to Bari, has tried his best to tackle the problem “but the people involved are always looking for ways of attacking him instead of desisting from the ungodly act.
People in other communities have power supply or street solar light but we don’t have any. If you spend a night in this place, you will better understand what I am telling you.”
Why we are still in darkness -Kaaani Youth leader
Mbani Friday blamed the absence of power supply in the community on the inability of Kaani to have a representative at any level of government in the state.
His words: “We don’t have people in government, and you know the system in Nigeria. If your community people are not in government, you will find it difficult to get even the presence of the local government in your community, not to talk of that of the state or federal government.
“When someone is in power from a community, they say this is our time and our turn, and by so doing, attract projects to their community.
“This will tell you indirectly that since the creation of Kaani the indigenes have never gone close to power.”
Ondo community wallows in darkness
The inhabitants of Ayetoro community in Ondo State have also not had electricity supply from the government in spite of the huge revenue the country generates from exploiting crude oil from the state.
Findings revealed that the only power supply enjoyed by the community was the one they got through communal efforts. Unfortunately for them, the challenge of sea surge ravaging the area has destroyed the project.
Going down memory lane, a member of the community, Emmanuel Aralu, said: “The challenge of power supply has been from inception. From 1947, we have not had power supply from the government. The power we enjoyed was from our communal efforts.
“After Lagos and Ibadan, Ayetoro was another place in the Western Nigeria where people enjoyed power supply 24 hours a day.
“We started using our independent power supply since 1953 or 54. The engine was bought from Western Germany and people used to contribute money to buy diesel to power it.
“Unfortunately for us, the ocean surge ravaging the community has damaged the power plant. All the engines have turned into scrap as a result of recurrent sea surge.”
Emmanuel said the community had just acquired solar power to light up major streets where people move around at night.
“This cost us a lot of money to fix,” he said.
Apart from those who have money to buy generators, other people in the community don’t have power supply.
“A society where there is no power supply is automatically an underdeveloped place,” Aralu said, adding: “We have engineers and artisans who need electricity to carry out their jobs on a daily basis in order to earn a living, but that is not possible.
“There are hordes of business people who depend on power to sell their goods but can’t do so because of the situation at hand.
“Bars and restaurants depend on fuel to make their drinks cold. This makes the price at which they will sell to be higher.
“Women in the community can no longer go into frozen food business, which some of them were using to support their families in the past.
“It is very difficult at this point to run such a business with generator because of the rise in fuel price.”
Aralu noted that now that petrol price has gone up, some people cannot afford to buy it every day to run their businesses.
Personally, he said: “Absence of power supply has also affected my work. People come to have their haircut at night, and if there is no power supply I can’t work. Now that there is a hike in the pump price of PMS, it becomes economically killing for us to switch on generator from 7:30 pm till 10 or 11pm when we are not sure that customers will come.”
Also lamenting their predicament, the Public Relations Officer of Ayetoro Community Youth Congress, Comrade Omoyele Akingboye, spoke in a tone that reverberated with pain.
“We have never had power supply from the government but we have always had independent power supply that was put in place on August 11, 1953,” he said, corroborating Aralu.
“When we started generating power in 1953, Mr J Mellanby came for its inauguration when he heard about it on August 24, 1953. But the power house has been destroyed by the ravaging sea surge.
“As it stands now, the engines that were bought by the community for the purpose of power generation have become detonated because we have not used them in the past 30 years.
“Now, our people individually source their power supply which is through generating set.
“The economy of our community has been adversely affected because there is no power supply.
“Some individuals whose businesses require power have gone all out to buy engines and power it by themselves. Some who cannot afford engines are using solar powered light now.
“Some who have no financial wherewithal have diverted to other business to earn a living and cater for their families.”
Worried by the security challenges that may crop up as a result of the community being in darkness, Akingboye said: “We sold the detonated engines that we have not used for the past 30 years as scrap. The money realised from it was used to do solar street light for places that have not been ravaged by sea surge.
“The absence of power supply has security implications for our community, and that is why money realised from the engines that were sold was used to provide streetlights to ensure criminal activities are not perpetrated at night. Criminal activities at night in Ayetoro are minimal. There is no place where there is no crime, but we believe that God resides where there is light.”
NDDC solar light projects vanish in Ayetoro
A multi-million naira solar light projects meant to save the embattled community from darkness was said to have all disappeared.
Speaking on the project, Aralu said: “The NDDC project was done about a decade ago. It was to be done in phases.
“At one point they brought two lights, at another time they brought three and so on. We really didn’t have it brought at once for us to enjoy it.
“The project was abandoned and as good as a waste of money. Most of those things they did have been destroyed by ocean surge.”
Bara-mam community in Bayelsa enveloped by darkness
In 2000, a former governor of Bayelsa State, the late Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, promised to supply the local government areas in the state with pipe borne water and electricity before July, 2001.
The promise ended up as a political statement. Many communities in the state are said to lack power supply 23 years after the late former governor made the promise.
Bara-ama community in Brass Local Government Area is one of the communities wallowing in darkness. For the community’s residents, nightfall comes with sorrow as they are always living in darkness.
“They rely on the moon to move about at night and use anything light they can afford to see in their houses.”
The Community Development Secretary, Jeremiah Johnbull, in a chat with our correspondent, said: “We have never had electricity in our community. We don’t have wire and we have never had poles.
“Those who have money buy fuel to power their generators while those who have no money remain in darkness.
“We have approached different non-governmental organisations and government authorities to give power supply but all is to no avail.”
The economy of the community, according to him, has also been badly affected.
“People who had cold rooms have abandoned them because there is no light. Many of the people have left the community,” he said.
NDDC declined comment when our correspondent sought the commission’s remark on the plight of the above communities.
NDDC Chair, MD fight dirty at Senate over alleged corruption
The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is saddled with the responsibility of offering lasting solution to the socio-economic difficulties in the region and to facilitate the rapid and sustainable development of the area into a region that is economically prosperous, socially stable ecologically regenerative and politically peaceful.
Laudable as the mission of the commission is, it has been found to have been deeply enmeshed in corruption over the years. Monies meant to provide basic amenities for the embattled citizens who suffer grievously for oil exploration in their communities end up in private pockets.
About N6 trillion was allegedly misappropriated in the running of the NDDC between 2001and 2019. A former minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godwill Akpabio, while presenting a forensic audit report on the commission, said over 13,000 projects were abandoned in the region.
Last month (May), the Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Samuel Ogbuku, and the Chairman of the Board, Lauretta Onochie, fought dirty as they accused each other of corrupt practices.
Ogbuku and Onochie engaged in the sordid exchanges during an investigative hearing by the Senate Committee on unauthorised spending of the 2021 and 2022 budget of the agency without National Assembly’s approval.
The managing director was represented at the session by the Executive Director in charge of Finance and Administration, Charles Airhiavere, while Onochie appeared in person.
Airhiavere accused Onochie of overstepping her bounds by desperately seeking to be a signatory to NDDC’s accounts.
He alleged that Onochie even wrote a letter to the Accountant-General of the Federation seeking to be made a signatory to the agency’s accounts.
Onochie, however, said the decision for her to be a signatory to the accounts was taken by the board at one of its meetings, adding that it was not a personal decision.
She said the request for change of signatory was rejected because the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) directed the managing director to ensure that her confirmation was sought in every financial transaction.
“The CBN said I should be the confirming authority but they didn’t come back to me. That is why they have been operating the way they like,” Onochie said.
Onochie, however, accused the managing director and the entire management of running the commission in breach of financial regulations.
She alleged that the NDDC management currently operates a total of 367 accounts against the dictates of the Treasury Single Accounts (TSA) policy of the Federal Government.
According to Onochie, all these accounts are in foreign exchange (FOREX).
The managing director denied the existence of 367 accounts in the agency but admitted that it operates only four.
Onochie also informed the Senate that since the board assumed office in January 2023, it had not enjoyed the cooperation of the management of the NDDC.
She alleged the managing director had been frustrating attempts to hold board meetings where necessary decisions ought to be taken.
This allegation was rejected by the managing director who said the main problem arose from what he called “trust deficit” between the board and the management.
Airhiavere also said that the board never gave sufficient notice of any board meeting as required by law.
Onochie further informed the Senate Committee that part of the abuse of financial regulations displayed by the Ogbuku-led management was the increase of the monthly imprest for the managing director from N4 billion to N10 billion.
The Senate Committee led by Senator Yusuf Yusuf (APC, Taraba Central) expressed shock at the disclosures made by the board and the management of the NDDC.
