No Liquor, Potable Water for Dr. Jonathan -By Steve Ayorinde

Otuoke is an irony that is more of an indictment on the Niger Delta leadership, which won the world’s sympathy over the environmental degradation and criminal neglect of their key cities where Nigeria derives its wealth but chose to fritter the goodwill. The economic and political fortunes of the region has since changed from the era of neglect from Abuja to the abandonment and mismanagement inflicted on the region by the very people that agitated for better lives in the Niger Delta and who got elected at state and federal levels to better the lot of their people.

A very good contender for the Story of the Month award: There is no potable water in Otuoke, the hometown of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, the immediate past President of Nigeria.

But I do not think Elijah Ateki, the Chairman of Community Development Committee in that backwater town in Bayelsa State, was trying to add to the former President’s woes when he made that startling disclosure to the News Agency of Nigeria last week. He was only drawing attention to the sorry state of social infrastructure and standard of living in the town where Dr. Jonathan recently built his multi-million naira country home.

“Otuoke community depends on rivers and now that all the rivers are polluted by oil, it is difficult for us to get potable water here,” he told NAN correspondent whose apt headline for the same story – ‘There is no drinking water in Otuoke’ has sensationally drawn attention to the 16 years spent in positions of authority by Dr. Jonathan who happened to be a former deputy governor and governor of the same Bayelsa State.

Why should a small town from a ‘minority’ ethnic group that produce the president of Africa’s most populous country be made to suffer this type of neglect?

A youth corps member’s account of the hard times in Jonathan’s hometown is even more gripping: “You will not believe that here in Otuoke, we use water from an unused suck-away pit dug near our lodge, for washing clothes and bathing,” she told NAN. “For cooking and drinking, we buy sachet water. We spend the bulk of our monthly allowances on water. We need government’s intervention.”

But which government’s intervention was the young lady referring to? The administration of Seriake Dickson, the Bayelsa State governor, who is believed to have fallen out with the former President’s family or that of Dr. Jonathan himself who had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to touch the lives of his people, particularly his kinsmen in Otuoke, but rather chose to create billionaires that preferred to invest in Port Harcourt, Lagos and Abuja or even overseas?

And to imagine that the first President from that region, as well as the first woman to be elected OPEC President under whose watch as Nigeria’s Oil Minister, billions of dollars allegedly disappeared, are both natives of Bayelsa State just makes the case very galling.

Or could the ‘youth corper’ be referring to the administration of the self-styled Governor-General of the Ijaw, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who chose an Otuoke ‘intellectual’ as his Deputy but is now reading in the newspapers, 16 years later, that the Otuoke son-of-the-soil forgot to provide potable water or have the roads there tarred?

To be candid, the Otuoke dry taps is a sad commentary on Nigeria, where 47 percent of citizens cannot access potable water and where 83 percent source their drinking water privately, according to World Health Organisation. It is sad because it means Nigeria has failed the Millennium Development Goals’ target of 75 percent coverage of access to safe drinking water by the citizens, in a country where there is always a Minister in charge of Water Resources, but who does next to nothing other than commission boreholes and the like.

Otuoke is an irony that is more of an indictment on the Niger Delta leadership, which won the world’s sympathy over the environmental degradation and criminal neglect of their key cities where Nigeria derives its wealth but chose to fritter the goodwill. The economic and political fortunes of the region has since changed from the era of neglect from Abuja to the abandonment and mismanagement inflicted on the region by the very people that agitated for better lives in the Niger Delta and who got elected at state and federal levels to better the lot of their people.

Jonathan’s wine is not the noise maker type. Not that it matters that much though, only that one wonders what the ex-President is expected to drink if alcohol is a no – no and there is no potable water in Otuoke. After all, the immediate first-family is not known to have vested interest in the business of bottled water.

The region justifiable gets the largest share of federal allocations; a staggering amount which if used judiciously in 16 years should have turned at least 10 cities to our own Dubai, Singapore and Manila. Militants have since become billionaires, owning fleets of private jets, private universities and warships. And to imagine that the first President from that region, as well as the first woman to be elected OPEC President under whose watch as Nigeria’s Oil Minister, billions of dollars allegedly disappeared, are both natives of Bayelsa State just makes the case very galling.

It is so touching, almost in a comical way that the Otuoke waterless saga is gaining currency at a time that Jonathan’s spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, decided to inform the nation that contrary to widespread impression, his boss is not given to alcohol. It is curious that Abati would accept that his boss had a huge perception problem that made people to attribute his lopsided, often incoherent expressions to being bibulous. If he ever drank at all, in the four years that he worked with him, Abati said his ex-boss drank only wine, only on special occasions. But why debunk it after the damage has been done?

It won’t matter if the internet is awash with photographs of the President at social gatherings where his table is littered with alcohol bottles. Jonathan’s wine is not the noise maker type. Not that it matters that much though, only that one wonders what the ex-President is expected to drink if alcohol is a no – no and there is no potable water in Otuoke. After all, the immediate first-family is not known to have vested interest in the business of bottled water.

Those who have their ears to the ground say hospitality and fish business, asides oil and gas perhaps, would be more like it for the Jonathans. The largest cold room and a brand new multi-billion naira four-star hotel, where Dr. Jonathan’s portrait, rather than President Muhammadu Buhari’s is on the reception wall, in Yenagoa, they claim, is a testimony to their business preference.

However, perception is not the only problem that the Jonathans tend to suffer from. Indiscretion is another, which explains why the first family would last week indulge in a well-publicised safari holiday in Kenya with two private jets – one carrying the first family and the other for their security details.

It should bother him that this sort of immodesty, barely three months after leaving office, should happen with fanfare at a time that his kinsmen lack potable water and his political allies fear that the opposition looks poised to erase his last political legacy by defeating the Peoples Democratic Power in Bayelsa State.