Govt Has Left Us To Our Fate, C’River Community Wails

Chiemeka ADINDU, Calabar

Enima Omin Layout is one of the smallest communities situated at the heart of Calabar Municipality of Cross River State. Known for being mountainous which has almost made it impossible to allow for vehicular movement, Enima Omin as a community is being threatened with many challenges which requires urgent action from the government.
The condition has made residents of the community conclude that the Cross River State government has neglected them as all their attempts to draw government’s attention has not yielded any positive result over the years. They complain of virtually everything that lies in the hands of the government to provide for her citizens. To them, the most annoying part is that it is only during election periods that they are being remembered as an entity in the state.
They are therefore calling on spirited individuals and the Cross River State government to come to their aid to reduce their burden as they have spent millions of naira doing endless community projects just to ensure their safety. They said the nature of the place had made it look as if the projects were endless. They complained that by the time they finished one project, another would come up, which made them continue investing their earnings on projects the government ought to have provided for her citizens.
Relating the situation to TNN, chairman of the estate, David Edem said they do the projects in phases since they do not have the capacity to carry out the entire project at a time. He said they spent over N20 million on their own just for the electricity project in the community. Not just that, he complained that there is nothing the government has ever provided for them including; water, electricity, access to good roads and even security.

Agro Industrialization Summit: Ayade’s Aide Applauds Colleague

He said: “We have been struggling to complete the self help ravine/erosion control project phase 2 at Enima Omin Omin Layout, Calabar Municipality. It’s sad and most unfortunate that when it is time for elections, the residents of our layout are remembered as being part of ward 10, but when it comes to provision of critical infrastructure, the local government authority only exists for the collection of revenue and payment of staff salaries. We dare where the LGA cannot, if only the huge revenue generated were not travelling through private pockets at the expense of our collective wellbeing. This country is really sick and bereft of purposeful leadership. In this our subtle Serene layout, we provide ourselves with every public infrastructure you can ever think of, it’s incredible.
“Erosion threatened the place and we have a lot of senior citizens there who have retired and most of their houses are almost swallowed by the gully erosion so I had to mobilize resources so that the community will be safe. We have written to everybody; that’s the community that we provide ourselves with everything, electricity we provided for ourselves, we spent almost 20 million through our individual contributions to electrify the place through the rural electrification in the place and we never got any leverage from PHEDC.
“We are paying them bills for a project that we did, over 20 million we spent for the electrification of the entire state. We provide ourselves with water, we provide ourselves with road and we provide ourselves with everything. We’ve written to all the government agencies you can ever think of, we cannot wait and allow our little hurts to be swallowed. And that’s even the second one; we did the first one last year. This one is the second phase. Even the entire estate, we have 10 security men there we pay every month.”