By Perez Brisibe
UGHELLI – FORMER presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Prof. Patrick Utomi has lamented the exit of companies from Delta State stressing that the state has become “barren of corporate life.”

Pat Utomi

Utomi, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC and renowned economics professor in a statement Saturday as part of activities to mark his birthday, noted that though Nigeria may have gone through bad patches, “Delta has no excuse being the home of many poor.”

Questioning the current economic position of the state, Utomi said: “How does a state go from being the shining light of Western region, to one that poverty rules and desperation is etched unto the faces of citizens?”

Utomi stated that Delta has become barren of corporate life stressing that most companies like Shell Petroleum Development Company, Pan Ocean and others have moved from the state with manufacturers closing shop.

Giving a recipe for a way out in the state, he said: “Nothing stops Delta from becoming a network of industrial parks linked by world class infrastructure. Delta must rise up again, but it will take you and I working together, to build a development focused state for our children and not one being defined by excessive partisanship and ethnic chauvinism.