Delta: Okowa spent N4.2tr without anything to show, Omo-Agege alleges

Deputy Senate President and the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Delta State, Ovie Omo-Agege, has accused Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of wasting the state’s over N4.2 trillion without any commensurate projects to show for the money.

Omo-Agege made the accusation while addressing State House Correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa yesterday in Abuja.

He also alleged that the governor has been spending the state’s resources to fund the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign, adding that just one per cent of the money Okowa has devoted to the campaign would address the state’s infrastructure deficiency.

The Deputy Senate President, who said he was at the Villa to pay the festive homage as well as discuss some national issues with the President, dismissed the insinuation that Delta is a PDP state.

According to him, Delta residents have become despondent over the waste of resources and lack of attention allegedly unleashed on them in the last 14 years of “PDP’s misrule”.

“…If you go to Delta State today, there is no road; no single road that is new road and constructed by Okowa as a governor. The last set of roads that we have in Delta State was constructed by former Governor James Ibori.

“Since that time, not a single new road – either by former Governor Emmanuel Uduagan or by Governor Okowa – has been done. All he’s been doing is doing patches, using mushroom companies to do patches or remedial work on some of these roads which, after three, four months, they get washed away by the rains.

“It is a very serious misconception to tag Delta State a PDP state; not by any means. Okowa is very ripe for the taking. Delta is very ripe for the taking,” Omo-Agege said.

Giving his reasons for criticising the Okowa administration for alleged failure, the Deputy Senate President said: “By our own reckoning, since the Okowa administration came into being, Delta State has received close to N4.2 trillion. Like I said, by way of federal allocation, it came by way of 13 per cent derivation and about N400 billion that the state has borrowed.

“Only recently, thanks to my brother, the governor of Rivers State, who also made us to understand that another N260 billion was given to our state (on account of shortfall payment).

“So, if you look at that, it will be a total of N4.2 trillion that has come to the state. There’s nothing on ground by way of infrastructural development that is commensurate with all of these receipts that come to the state.” Nation