Royal Father laments alleged marginalization of ONELGA
4 min read
Edith CHUKU
A traditional ruler in Ogba-Egbema-Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State, has expressed discontent over the alleged marginalization of the LGA, which he said has suffered from political unrest, killings, kidnapping, among other forms of criminality.
His Royal Highness, Amb. Bright Abali explained how political unrest in the past has affected ONELGA negatively.
Abali, who is also an Eminent Peace Advocate expressed dismay over the underdeveloped state of the LGA, even as he charged natives to speak good of their land, which he said is the oil and gas hub of Nigeria.
According to him, “The wreckage of the past ungodly unrest, political battles, killings, maiming, kidnapping, and other forms of criminality have deposited lot of negative impression about our oil/gas rich Ogba, Egbema, Ndoni LGA of Rivers State.
“It’s a creation of enemies, strange element, and neighbours who vowed that no good thing will come out of this rich-lands despite our natural wealth. In the political circle, they made us to return home empty after following in the front-roll of the new democracy since 1999. From Obasanjo tenure till date, from Odili, Omehia, Amaechi & Wike tenure, there’s nothing to show.
“Not that our illustrious sons and daughters were not close to power but it was a cooked-plan that ONELGA should be underdeveloped, they raised criminal element to kill our people, all these manipulations are orchestrated to set us back because ONELGA was already ahead of other LGAs nationwide. It has been the next city after the state capital, Port Harcourt. Beautifully planned with road network and steady electricity but they allowed all the good features of ONELGA city to be obsolete grounded.”
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Abali accused the ruling class that they, “stopped the multinationals, IOCs and their subsidiaries to stop developing Ogba, ONELGA. They charged them to pass all their MoUs, CSRs and Sustainable development plans through govt and since then no reasonable project was done in our land.
“They created musters in human form and evil cabal to be middlemen to sign our projects and the musters abandoned all the projects from Odili, Amaechi and Wike tenure, only 25% of the total projects awarded was executed in our land. So painful.”
He continued that, “these negative happenings since the new-democratic era led our people to take up their pen and phone to write and type their pains, lamenting the injustice, marginalization and wickedness we suffer from people, govt and organizations at all time. This pain led to the creation of Pseudo accounts on social media to bombard govt and its associates freely without fear.
“The pseudo accounts were veritable tool to abuse govt and big names without fear. Pictures of people murdered and their suspected murderers, crime, gory pictures, bizarre stories, horrible things were posted online about Ogba, Egbema, Ndoni LGA, Then the idea was to attract sympathy from all sector and sue for justice for the slain people and marginalization suffered by the people of ONELGA, indeed it felt nice for the operators of this social media accounts but unknowingly to the practitioners of this act, they have succeeded to deposit only negative things about the land in the World-Wide-Web, most things saved in www, goggle, facebook are indelible, and the globe saved the negative versions of our land and our good sides were erased.
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“Many years to come, as you just go to goggle search and type in “Ogba’ Onelga” what you will see is negative images about the people and the place. No good thing will pop-up. This is too bad. This is what marginalization led our people into.”
Abali stressed that ONELGANs are not, “bad people as portrayed online. We are hospitable people, receptive to strangers and investors. Our land is so blessed with natural endowment, our land is the hydrocarbon hub of the nation, the land of black gold. The treasure base of the nation. The land where the Nation economic mainstay is highly deposited.
“Our geographical area is uniquely blessed, our environment is superb with green vegetation everywhere, rivers, forest and high produce recorded in all sectors of agriculture despite the oil/gas exploration.
“Our culture, festivals are unique. Our marriage rites are simply the best. A tribe that gives out their precious daughters as bride with household gift items for free to the groom. Our youths are peaceful, our non-violent youths have supportively encouraged oil/gas exploration in our land for over 60years despite the infiltration of strangers and machineries hired to set us back.
“Ogba, Egbema, Ndoni LGA is a peaceful land and its people are loveable and friendly. We will continue to say who we are before enemies enviously poll us down perpetually. The negative image created by enemies of the oil/gas rich Ogba, Egbema, Ndoni LGA, ONELGA, should be disregarded.
“Henceforth, our people will post & speak positive things about our blessed land. Ogba is blessed. ONELGA our LGA is the best.”
