by crossriverwatch admin
Senator Victor Ndoma Egba, Nigeria’s Senate Leader has finally shed his calm and cool approach to political publicity which he has adopted over the years and decided to face issues head on by opening the doors to the plethora of projects facilitated by him to the six local government areas that constitute the Central Senatorial District of Cross River State.
During an extensive tour of projects in the senatorial district which is expected to silence his critics who hitherto had claimed he has done little or nothing to improve the lives of his constituents, Ndoma Egba set out on Tuesday, the 21st of April from Calabar to the project sites, a journey which lasted for five days.
In an entourage of few cars from his home in Calabar, he was joined by a deluge of supporters as he went round Yakkur, Abi, Obubra, Ikom Boki and Etung local government areas which constitute the Central Senatorial District that he represents.
Beginning from Idomi, Yakkur Local Government Area, the first community in his constituency located a few kilometers away from the Ugep –Calabar highway, the Senate Leader inspected the first water project in an itinerary which eventually took him several communities of the district with some located in remote and difficult terrain.
In Idomi, his first port of call, is a water project worth 99 million naira which has an intake point and an over head tank with 22,000 storage capacity and pipes are being laid across the community to reticulate supply points to families.
Also in Yakkur, at the Ugep Community Secondary School is a library complex which has been put to use since 2012 and has a sitting capacity for seventy students. At Mkpani, five water projects are going on simultaneously to meet the water needs of the people. Pipes are to be laid across the community to take the water to every household.
Speaking at the Mkpani water project site, Senator Ndoma Egba said he is passionate about providing portable water to the people because clean water helps in improving the health of the people. “I have facilitated projects in education, health, environment but I am passionate about water because it is proven that good drinking water helps keep the health of the people in good state. This water project is replicated in five places in this community and pipes will be laid round the community to ensure the water gets to the door steps of every person.”
In adjoining Abi Local Government Area, which happens to be the home of Cross River State governor, Senator Liyel Imoke, the Senate Leader inspected six projects spanning roads, erosion control, school blocks, water supply schemes and a police station building.
These are the 1.45 kilometer Usumutong Drainage and Erosion Control site which is currently running at a cost of 89 million naira with plans to asphalt and extend the project to cover the entire community.
In neighboring Ebo, the water project there has been completed at the cost of 35 million naira and is supplying portable water to the over three thousand inhabitants while in Ediba, a component of the erosion control at Usmutong is in progress and is expected to channel water from the water logged portions of the riverine community to the Ediba river.
Also in Abi a six classroom block constructed at the Enughwuhema Comprehensive Secondary school has been completed and ready for commissioning while an ultramodern structure is being erected at Itigidi to accommodate the divisional police station which in the past twenty one years has been functioning from a rented apartment.
In Ikom, one of the center piece of his Senatorial representation is located on the slope along the Ikom – Calabar highway and it is the Specialist Hospital which has 200 bed capacity and is being built at a cost of 1.2 billion naira. The project which is one of the six sited in each of the six geopolitical zones has pediatrics, maternity, autism, male, female and VIP sections. It is already 60 percent completed.
Also at Ikom, the water channelization project which is collecting water from the Border Road, Ikom Main Market, Ikom Motor Park and the Calabar Road to dump at the Ikom river is almost completed and will significantly solve the perennial flooding in the western part of the town.
At the northern extreme of Ikom are projects like the gigantic Edor Water project, Akparabong Water project and the rehabilitation of the 245 Reece Battalion health center.
The Edor water project lifts treated water from the Cross River through a 28 kilometer distance with high lift pumps and delivers to over eight communities of Adun, Ntansele, Njimeto, Edor Army Barracks and Edor itself. Fitted with a 22 000 cubic meters storage capacity, and costing the Federal Government, 457 million naira, the project is a standard water scheme found in any part of the world.
A similar scheme, the Akparabong Water project, located in the community where the Senate Leader comes from, is expected to address the long standing water problem of the people and is being reticulated to cover the entire community and the adjoining Ajijinkpor village.
The tour of projects which lasted till Saturday morning took the Senate Leader and his team to Obubra where the Apiapum Water and erosion Control project is sited, four classroom block at Yala Nkum Primary School and the Iyamoyong road project.
The Chief of Apiapum who was so impressed with the erosion control project in his community brought out a mammoth crowd to welcome the Senate Leader. “We have in the past seen sections of our community constantly eroded and submerged in flood but with the channelization, waters will be kept off our corridors and we can boldly say here that since you have considered us worthy of living, we shall swim or sink with you”. The Ohogoro of Okom, told Ndoma Egba.
In Boki, one of the largest local government areas in the state which borders Cameroon, is located an irrigation projects which is one of its kind in the South South and one of the biggest in the country. According to Senator Ndoma Egba, the project was drafted to the place borne out of the agrarian nature of the people of the area.
The irrigation project which covers a landscape of 146 hecters, commenced in 2010 and has the triple purpose of providing water for irrigation, hydro electricity and delivering portable water to the teeming inhabitants of Basua Eruan and adjoining communities.
The irrigation project, he said has a dam and flood control component with capacity for 4.2 million cubic water annually. Costing the Federal Government 747.999 million naira, the construction of the inlet and outlet structure along with the intake tower is in rapid progress and it is expected that the target completion period of 2014 would be met.
In cocoa producing Etung Local Government Area, the Senate Leader attracted a water channelization project for the Etomi Bendeghe Ekiem and Ajassor villages. The Trans African highway which passes through Enugu- Abakaliki – Mbuk – Mfum road terminates there. The road project that was completed in 2013 has significantly affected several communities along the 240 kilometres stretch.
Explaining the benefits accruable to the people from the road, Senator Ndoma-Egba said apart from affording the pleasure of a smooth drive, the economic fortunes of the people in the northern and central parts of the state have significantly been transformed as they can easily transport their economic crops to the several markets in the area.
To contribute to the schools he graduated from, the University of Lagos and the University of Calabar, he attracted the construction of three storey edifices to serve as Law Faculties for the two schools.
At a cost of 359 million naira, the project in the University of Calabar where the Senate Leader did his L LM, 70 percent of the work has been done. Spacious and fitted with library, classrooms, offices for the lecturers and administrative staff, the complex is a big relief to the Law Faculty which has been on temporary site since the inception of the university forty years ago.
Speaking on the projects, Senator Ndoma Egba said outside the Trans Africa highway, the Ajassor- Okoroba- road projects, he has in the past twelve years attracted over seven billion naira projects to the state. ‘These projects will touch the lives of the people whether they are farmers, fishermen, civil servants or businessmen and in spite of all these, I will be fulfilled when the dream of attracting a tertiary institution to the Central Senatorial District is accomplished”,
Baring his mind on the projects, one of Senator Ndoma Egba’s supporter’s Hon Jones Tangban, an erstwhile member of the House of Representatives and the Director General of Victory Chapter 4 said “In the past, Senator has been acting in accordance with the injunction of the Bible in Matthew 6, which says what your right hand does, let your left hand not know, but so long with that injunction now. He is moving to Matthew chapter 28 verses 18 where Jesus enjoined his disciples to go and tell the world about him.”
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