UROMI My Fatherland

By Akioyamen Josephine

It was Dr. Christopher Abebe who posited about Uromi of the 1920, where he spent a substantial part of his childhood in his biography "Abebe:Portrait of a Nigerian Leader" written by Tekena N. Tamuno and Ayodele Aderinwale,this way:

“Uromi, a dusty sprawling town consisting of 19 surrounding villages, with Eguare Uromi serving as its official headquarters. In the mid-1920s, Eguare Uromi was another typical Nigerian village housing the then important structures such as the native court, located in the southern part of the village. Besides, it was the Uromi Government School. On the other side of the town, beside the big central market, were later established the mercantile stores of John Holt and United Africa Company (UAC). Eguare Uromi was also the seat of the traditional ruler of all of Uromi, the Onojie.

An essentially agrarian community, Uromi was peopled by happy-go-lucky individuals. The average Uromi man loved and did not joke with his calabash of palm wine. The inhabitants of Uromi did not need an excuse to celebrate. Christmas was a daily and continuous affair. There was always plenty to drink and eat. Dancing, drinking and general merriment was the vogue. The Onojie, then, behaved like a typical Uromi man. His palace organized dances which extended to the Native Authority barracks, the houses of big chiefs such as Chief Okpere and the market, almost on a daily basis. Such was the prevalent atmosphere of infinite rustic revelry for the Uromis that there was hardly a dull moment. To cap it all, they were incurable litigants. Thus, the native court convened regularly.

 The only problem then was caused by the oversight of their forebears who had chosen the plateau as their habitat. There was a serious scarcity of clean water. Brooks were virtually non-existent; where these existed, they were very far from the town. Most school children often had to trek seven miles or more to Ubiaja to fetch clean water. The local ponds constructed to alleviate this problem were often abused by the unhygienic behaviour of most villagers. The children swam 18 and washed their linen there. It was this same water that was collected for drinking and cooking. The constant streaming to the pond made the water so muddy that its usual colour was dark brown. To remedy this, and in a bid to make the water drinkable, the villagers would put red mud in an earthenware pot and stir up the water; when the water had eventually settled down, it was usually clean. Later, they would buy alum from the market and put it into the water. This would then make the muddy particles settle at the bottom of the pot. No one taught them to boil the water to kill the germs before drinking. Consequently, guinea-worm and other water-borne diseases had a field day."

The question before me right now and today, is how far have we progressed beyond what our forefathers laid down for us? Have we been able to solve the fundamental problem which fate has thrust upon us? Do we have any going business concern in Uromi as large as the UAC and John Holt of the days of yore? Do we have a single manufacturing concern in Uromi? What is the competitive advantage of our great town that would make any manufacturing concern want to set up any production business in Uromi? How have we tried as a people to give ourselves that competitive edge? To Be Continued

Scarcity Of Drinkable Water In Uromi Kingdom

By Akioyamen Josephine

Let start with a picture. She was not less than 60 years old. Her brow was furrowed with the cares of life. She had an empty water can on her head. Closely following her was her grandson of 15. He wore a pair of black stripe pants that was a tad small for him. His flip flops had seen better days. He looked listless from the hunger that was gripping his being. It was early morning. They were on a journey for survival. An odyssey to find the elixir of life or die. Their quarry was a gully on the side of a road some six kilometers away containing muddy water left by rain in days gone by. It took them forty five minutes to make the journey. She heaved a sigh of relief when she saw that her faith in the gully was not misplaced. She and her grandson quickly got down to business lest another person materialized out of nothingness and deprived her of the only source that could sustain their lives. In the most macabre of sights she bent from the waist down and began to scoop water from the gully on the side of the road. . That woman is our mothers who have been reduced to a life of bare existence because of the prodigality of our children. This picture is representative of what you see everywhere in Uromi Kingdom.

It is the year of the LORD 2014. There is no water anywhere in Uromi. it is desert-land.. The taps of Ugbalo Waterworks is dry. The pipes are rusting away. Hon. Itulah the member of the House of Representatives for ENE and ESE shamelessly touts the repair as one of his achievements. While Adam Oshiomhole the hypocritical Governor of Edo is doing propaganda on the amount of boreholes he had dug in Uromi. There is simply a conspiracy to make sure that Uromi is cut off from portable and healthy drinking water. We rely on nature to get drinking water , unwashed water tankers to get water from Ugboha or failing that we rely on watering holes in our villages anathema even to the beasts of the wild. We die in droves from Cholera and other water borne diseases. We walk kilometers to source that poisonous water that is slowly killing us.

Whose fault is it that we don't have portable drinking water in Idoma land? The fault lies squarely at the doorsteps of every tiers of government. Why is the local governments not finding ways to make stop gap provisions of water for us? Why is ENE LG not copying the examples of OGBADIBO and OJU Local governments in Benue State who worked with the UNDP and provided matching funds to ensure that boreholes are done within the patchworks of the communities within those local governments? Why is the state government in dereliction of its duties to repair Ugbalo water works? If Ugbalo is no longer viable why would the Federal government not step in and give us an alternative? What is the plan for water in ENELGA at the long term? What are we willing to do about it as individuals?

The importance of water to our well being cannot be emphasized enough. Water is life. The oceans alone covers 71% of the earth's surface. Our bodies on average is made up of 80% water. We survive without food for 90 days or more. We die without water for 3 to 10 days. Water gives us food. It cleanse us. The absence of this life giving elixir from UROMI milieu more than anything reduces Uromi to one of hard, brutal and intolerable existence. It adds to our poverty in unimaginable ways. It is time to act. I call on the people of every community in Uromi and every Uromian in diaspora(outside Uromi and anywhere in the world) to take matters in their own hands and fashion out the best way forward. Let us where we can dig boreholes for ourselves through self and vote out the goddamned people who we elected and refused to performed. We are the power that be. God bless our Onojie. May his reign be long. God bless Uromi. May it endureth forever. We must survive.

The Latest on the Esan North Water Project

By Darlington Okpebholo Ray

                                                           
Dear Forum Fellow Members,

We have had the need to address this house today, the 21st day of January, 2015 on the controversy surrounding the Esan North water project that has been embarked on by the Fed Ministry of water Resources.

This honorable house would recall that in the second quarter of last year, 2014, the admin of this forum constituted a committee, ably chaired by my our dear brother Kareem Ehi Ojeaga, we also have John Ewah, Josephine Akioyamen, Prince Kenneth Edenojie and Cherish Albert Akhimiemona and yours sincerely, DOR, to look into the reason(s) behind the "failed" project. We had online meetings severally and yours sincerely, being an FCT resident was mandated to take a letter of inquiry directed to the Hon Minister of Water Resources.

The letter was actually done and duly initialed by the members of the committee and I did visit the office personally and delivered the letter which was acknowledged by the personal Secretary of the Minister. Between August last year and now when the letters were delivered to the Minister, the office of the Rt Hon Friday Itulah and Senator Odion Ugbesia, none of them replied those letters. But due to the controversy the issue has generated in the house and the latest post made by DW alleging that the sum of N2.5b voted for the project has been pocketed by Uromi people in Abuja, I decided to pay a visit to the Water Resources Ministry today again .......... The information that was given at the Minister`s office today by one of her aids, is a bit cheering if the reasons for the post made yesterday were genuine..

I was authoritatively informed today, that the project, as far as giving water to Uromi people were concerned is "completed and piped to Uromi, but however, Ugboha community housing the project is yet to have the water piped to their streets. We understand the APC govt in Edo state instigated the community to demonstrate against the commissioning by the Vice President Arc Nemadi Sambo. However, through serious pressure by our Minister and the Minister of Works who was always mounting pressure on madam Minister, the President has approved the release of funds to have the water piped to all the streets in Ugboha and it is only when this is completed that you can have water running in Uromi and all other communities joined in the project and the formal commissioning takes place"....

He went on to say......"It is a very successful project, we visited the site with former Information minister Labaran Maku during the good governance tour of last year in Edo state".

I just quoted the Minister`s aid above and it may interest the house that I had our conversation taped. Its recorded...........With this, I think all we need to do as a people is to be calm and pray for the money to be released on time and have the project completed so that water can run in all our communities as we used to have it in the days of our father Chief Tony Enahoro.

This does not call for any cheap blackmail, especially by those who politicize everything. Uromi is bigger than any individual. We respect our leaders from all political parties, as far as they are Uromi sons and daughters. We will not allow any individual or group to drag the names of our leaders dead or alive into unnecessary controversy.. It may interest the house to know however, that the reticulation or distribution of water is the sole responsibility of the state government and not the Federal. The Federal does the major works and leaves the distribution to the state. But in a failed state like ours, where the state government under Oshiomhole has failed in his statutory responsibility of providing pipe burn water for the people, especially when the governor wickedly single Uromi out for isolation and marginalization, we will always have Federal coming to our aid to almost do councilors projects for us and when there are little delays, the wanabies in the house would create for themselves empires of blackmail.

We will continue to update the house with any latest development on this issue. But on the General hospital road project, I will brief the house tomorrow as soon as I gather enough facts.
I thank you all most sincerely for your time. God bless you all.

God bless our dear King
God bless our dear Kingdom of Uromi
God bless Uromi Voice.

The Case for Less Partisanship in Discussion of Issues Affecting the Development of Uromi

 By Akioyamen Josephine

Partisanship is ; prejudice in favor of a particular cause; bias.: "an act of blatant political partisanship", bias, prejudice,one-sidedness, discrimination, favor, favoritism, partiality, sectarianism, factionalism. It commonly finds expression in politics, religion, nationalism or ethnonationalism. For the purpose of the case I'm making I shall restrict myself to political partisanship and ethnonationalism. Ethnonationalism is defined as; “a form of nationalism wherein the "nation" is defined in terms of ethnicity or race. The central theme of ethnic nationalists is that "nations are defined by a shared heritage, which usually includes a common language, a common faith, and a common ethnic ancestry". It is that nationalism which proceed on the basis of enlightened interest of a particular ethnic group (Uromi in particular and Esan in general) and at the detriment of other ethno nationalistic groups in competition with it.

Uromi Voice is set up to further the ethno nationalistic interest of Uromi in particular and Esan in general. It was conceived as a pro development, pro good governance , and post partisan platform to bring friends and people of Uromi in the far reaches of the earth together in one place for the purpose of Uromi development. It is serving this purpose very well. It was able to jump start reconstructive efforts at the Uromi Central Hospital. The platform was used to raised money for a deserving Uromi son. It is being used right now to get the Esan Northern Waterworks restarted. It was used to do a town hall like questioning of some of the candidates aspiring to represent us at the Edo State House of Assembly in the upcoming elections. It is being used to imbue in all of us a sense of patriotism, first to Uromi, then Esan, then Edo state and Nigeria at large.

Uromi voice gives us the unique platform to interact directly with policies makers for Uromi directly. We have the great Joe Okojie here. We have the honourable Minister of Works or his aides here. We have the chairman of the Local government Hon. Sam Oboh here. We have aides of Chief Tony Anenih here. We have aides of the Edo State Government, Adams Oshiomhole here. We have aides of Senator Odion Ugbesia and Hon. Friday Itulah here. To my knowledge and information, it is being scoured by policy formulators of Uromi heritage to gauge the pulse of the electorates toward their policies. It is an instant opinion poll for how we feel about things done in Uromi. We must take our task very seriously and conduct ourselves very respectfully if we must achieve our aim.

However there is a strand in Uromi Voice which I find most disconcertingly jarring. It is our knee jerk recourse to political partisanship in discussing matters of development in Uromi. Everything is reduced and seen through the crucible of the APC or the PDP or to which political affiliations we may espouse. In doing this we have forgotten why we chose this forum in the first place and why it appeared so invitingly to us. The result of this rancour is aptly captured in the first stanza of the poem ‘The Second Coming’ by William Butler Yeats. It goes like this:

“ Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

And the third stanza of the famous poem of John Pepper Clark titled ‘The Casualties’ set in the Nigerian Civil war. It goes like this:

“The drums overwhelm the guns…
Caught in the clash of counter claims and charges
When not in the niche others left,
We fall.
All casualties of the war.
Because we cannot hear each other speak. 
Because eyes has refused to see the face from the crowd.
Because whether we know or
Do not the extent of wrongs on all sides,
We are characters now other than before
The war began, the stay-at-home unsettled”

The import of the above, is that we either eschew emotional political partisanship when we discuss issues of Uromi development issues or we fall apart. Or we may find ourselves beating the drums of war louder than the actors in the field until we destroy the brotherhood and sisterhood that is Uromi and Uromi voice. We shouldn't fret about persons. We should care about the projects ; their cost, the impact to the environment, the benefit to Uromi, how we could pressure the policy makers to slow or expedite actions on them, how we can become a political think tank for policies, etc. We either do this or we fall.

We have the legitimacy to do this. Just consider the enormity of the following for a second. Uromi Voice approximates the number of people said to have participated in the elections in which Sam Oboh was elected. It has a membership base at the time of writing of 15,157. In that election, the Chairman of Edo State Independent Electoral Commission, EDSIEC, Mr. Solomon Ogoh declared that 15,986 voted. Sam Oboh was declared to have netted 12, 672 votes while, Mr. John Yakubu, was said to have gotten 3,314 votes. The difference between the membership of Uromi Voice and the number of people that participated in the election that put these putative policy makers in Uromi in power is 800! If viewed this way, Uromi Voice should be a potent voice and pressure group for Uromi. If only we let go of political partisanship when a post is made that touches on the development of Uromi. If only we discuss dispassionately and cerebrally without any visceral recourse to our default comfort zone. If only we treat them as Uromi issue and not as political point scoring by the originators of the posts.

It will be difficult to achieve. But it is the only way to oil our war machine. When put in proper perspective, we arrive at the irreducible conclusion, that, a); both parties (APC or PDP) take Uromi development as given and, b); the contention is always on which vehicle (APC or PDP) would take us faster to our desired destination; the Uromi of our collective dream. We therefore get stuck in process rather than the objective for which the process was designed to achieved. We must therefore deploy all the cerebral arsenal that we have to ensure that this sleeping giant, this Uromi Voice, could rise to meet its expectation. This is my post for a post partisan discussion of development issues affecting Uromi. Anyone is free to counter it. Thanks.

FG’s N2.4 Billion Water Project in Edo Fraudulent—Oshiomhole

 By Victor Oshioke

Governor Adams Oshiomhole has challenged the Federal Government to show the people of Edo Central where its N2.4 billion water project is sited saying even when the PDP Federal Government claims the project has been completed and commissioned, the local people still can’t get potable water.

Speaking at Uromi during the campaign of the All Progressives Congress in Edo Central on Wednesday, Oshiomhole said “the problem we have today is that in the books of Abuja, PDP says they have brought water to Esanland. If you ask the Onojie of Ugboha, the Onojie of Uromi and all the other Onojies in Esanland, they will tell you that there is no water in Esanland. They came to my office and said they are not going to allow the Vice President to come.”

Speaking to the mammoth crowd at the rally, Governor Oshiomhole queried the People’s Democratic Party-led Federal Government’s claim of completion of a N2.4 billion Esan Water Project maintaining that no such project was executed in the area.

“For 16 years, year after year, PDP keep promising they will give us power yet no power. APC State Government gave you transformers but you still don’t have light because transmission and generation which is required for the transformers to produce light have been sold by PDP Federal Government to their relatives.”

Oshiomhole maintained, “PDP have failed the nation. Instead of light, they produce darkness. They couldn’t produce jobs hence millions of Nigerians are unemployed and there is no light, industries cannot function. Are we going to allow them remain?

Oshiomhole added, “PDP brought kidnapping to Nigeria. Are we going to fold our hands till they kidnap us all? Today we are told that part of Nigeria is occupied by insurgents. What is insurgent? Were they sleeping? They took one local government, two local governments, three local governments and they couldn’t respond to the extent they took the village of the Chief of Defense Staff.

“This is a serious issue. When the righteous rule, the people rejoice but when the wicked are in power, the people perish. If you do not have light, do you need any other evidence to know that they are not righteous? So I want you to go back to your various destinations and take time to evaluate the performance of PDP in the past 16years”.

Oshiomhole said, “Nigeria at this stage need fighters to drive the required changes. We need a man of courage. It is not about who have more money, it is about who have clean hearts, who have more determination, who will fight for the people and General Muhammadu Buhari is the man to bring about these needed changes.

“They say General Buhari has no money but look at it critically, a man who was once Head of State, a man who was once Chairman of PTF, he rose to become Minister of Petroleum and was once a military governor, yet they say he has no money. Is that not clear evidence that he is not corrupt?

“How come those that are Head of State for few years have billions of naira yet the one that has been Head of State, Military Governor, Minister and General has no money. That shows that Buhari is the man who can fight corruption in Nigeria and if you don’t fight against corruption, our youths will have no future and our people will never have light because the money for light have been stolen by them.

Oshiomhole said the Edo State government will make available the sum of N20 million for the reconstruction of the Uromi Market which was razed by fire recently.

He said, “I am on my way from Ubiaja for the APC rally and I felt the need to see for myself the extent of damage by the fire outbreak in this market recently. We do not know those responsible for this devilish act but God is on his throne watching every one of us.

“Just to say that government is aware of the huge financial loss by the traders. The essence of governance is the provision of welfare and ameliorating the sufferings of the people, hence Edo State Government will assist the victims with the sum of N20 million. This money will be given to the Local Government Chairman before Monday next week”, he assured.

The Governor Rally Train was at Ubiaja, Esan South East Local Government Area, Uromi in Esan North East Local Government Area and Ugbegun-Ebudin in Esan Central Local Government Local Government where he presented the various candidates including Mr Francis Inegbeneki for Sentae, Comrade Onikolease Irabor and Gideon Obhakhan for House of Representatives, Henry Okpamen and Anselm Adima and Victor Edoror for House of Assembly

Mission Road Works

By Francis Shy-sky Imolamen

Sequel to DeWinner earlier on Uromi Voice. Here is the new phase of Mission Road Uromi. As I inscribe now, MC1 is about to be laid from the taxona axis to the post-office spot. Hopefully before this month runs out it will wear the glee beauty of a modern dualised constructive motorable road works. Some persons fail to realised that Arch, Mike is not executing this project to seek for a 2nd tenure in office to have warrant any thought of the project been delay. The worthwhile of a thing cannot manifest rushed.Tnks

2.5 BILLION NAIRA: Esan Northern Water Project Is Missing

 By Jeff Dewinner Okoduwa

This is one of the best times to ask politicians in charge of 2,5 billion naira Northern Esan Water Project questions.. We need to stop sweeping such matter under the carpet. My question is, where is the 2.5 billion naira? No man born of a woman can stop me from progressively monitoring the development and welfare of my people. Let them share peanuts from the 2.5 billion to anyone to keep me off the radar, but is absolutely impossible.

Where is water or 2.5 billion naira? Think think think think think and think.

Ekuisiareshan ibhiaba.