What is your assessment of the quality of work that the Uduaghan administration in Delta State?
I want to use this opportunity to say that those who are involved with contracting in the region should do quality jobs. That is why at an award ceremony we were very encouraged that the bishop that was invited raised the issue of quality of contracts in the area. He said when government gives contracts to build infrastructure in Oghara kingdom; they should give it to competent hands. For example, government asked you to build road in Oghara, you should build a quality road; you do not use money meant for building road to build mansions for yourself; it is a curse, not you just cursed alone, your children yet unborn will be cursed and that is what the bishop was saying on that very day we were honoured.
Are you satisfied with of works done in the area? When you see the quality of roads that was ongoing in Oghara, they are not up to standard and I want to appeal to Uduaghan to make sure that quality work is done in the kingdom. So, my call to Uduaghan is that he should tread carefully, particularly in Oghara, where most government job that have been given out, the roads particularly have not been properly done; the projects that are being implemented by DESOPADEC, because on the day of reckoning I am sure they will not be happy with themselves because it is not fair. Government gives you a job to carry out road construction, if you do not have the capacity; you look for a competent company to execute the project. It is out of greed, if government gives you a contract and you are not able to implement it and you spend the money and this is the same community you live in. Your children will be told the story and that is not good for your name and for any family.
So, my take on this is that government should continue to give major infrastructure projects to competent contractors so that they can do quality jobs.
Then beyond that, I want to appeal to Uduaghan that the teaching hospital will be in danger if particularly Oghara junction is not properly planned to direct traffic to the hospital as an international health institution. You cannot build such a multi-billion Naira teaching hospital and side-by-side you allow a condition like Oghara junction that looks like a ‘shanty town’ with such a multi-billion teaching hospital and you want it to be a centre of excellence. I want to encourage Uduaghan to at least because of that multi-billion investment in the teaching hospital, the polytechnic and other investments, even private investors that are coming they are all putting investments like the tanker farm. Now it is a disaster that is waiting to happen. You saw what happened in Lagos, what the tanker farms had done, the damage they had done to the community. As a matter of fact because of those multi-billion investments in the tanker farm in Ogharefe, there is need for modern fire-fighting station in Ogharefe, so should there be a disaster in Ogharefe you can imagine, what happened to Jesse that will be a small thing.
I want to appeal to the governor to quickly build a modern fire station to Ogharefe. It is very important because I know that those tanker farms pay tax to the state government and if they pay tax to the state government, the regulatory procedure to follow is that we must look into the risk that is associated with such investment and the risk associated with it is better not imagined.
If you look at those roads that pass through the community those tanks followed, if those tankers mistakenly fall and explode, the whole Ogharefe will be consumed; that is not good for the government.
And then that shanty community they call Oghara junction that is side by side the teaching hospital needs to be reviewed. I am not saying that he should build the entire community again, but there are things he can just do to give it a face-lift
How would you describe the award given to you recently at Oghara?
This is my Nobel Prize, especially when you receive such an award alongside people of high calibre, including the governor of the state, so you can imagine how grateful I am to everybody who considered me as their son particularly against the backdrop of what I went through in Edo State. The last 20 years I have been working as a human rights activist in the country and suddenly I had that problem where the Nigerian government through the police framed me up for what I did not do and I have been vindicated. I have been awarded costs. You know today, justice in Nigeria is a scarce commodity. If the governor was crying in the council chambers of the President, “I need justice for my aide that was killed and assassinated” and, the comrade governor with all his power; with all his network; with all his contacts both within and outside the country cannot have justice, I, David Ugolo, was able to be freed by the court; that simply was by His grace.
That is the reason why I value this award and this award, is as far as I am concerned, my Nobel Prize.
Who have I been talking to?
You have been talking with Rev. David Ugholo, the convener of the Oghara Study Group, a socio-cultural, intellectual think tank based in Oghara and I am also the executive director of African Network for Environment and Economic Justice, a very foremost human rights and environmental organisation based in Benin City with advocacy that stretches up to Abuja and by His grace in the last 20 years I have been involved in a number of struggles.
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