By Emma Amaize

WARRI—IJAW leader and activist, Apostle Clement Tonfawei, has asked the Delta State governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, to apologise to oil-bearing communities in the state for his alleged failure to develop riverine areas in his first year in office.

Okowa

Tonfawei, who lambasted the governor over the manner he conducted the last stakeholders’ meeting in Warri, said: “I expected him to first apologise to the oil-bearing communities that he has wronged in the past one year because he constructed and inaugurated projects in the upland areas without anything in the riverside.

“In the past one year, I know how much that had come to the state from the Federal Allocation and I also know about several projects that he had commissioned in Asaba and other parts of the state. Yet Governor Okowa did not deem it fit to put any project in the oil bearing communities.

“This is the highest level of injustice I have ever seen since I was born. I am speaking on behalf of my people because I am a leader in my community and I have involved myself in the struggle for a very long time,” he added.

On the governor’s complaint that allocation to the state had dropped, he said: “I will advise him not to complain to us that allocation coming to the state has dropped. He has been part of the government for the past 17 years. What did he do when the state was receiving over N20 billion as allocation? He has been a part of this injustice because he did not do anything to address the injustice done to our people. I will advise him to address this injustice now if he wants peace to reign in the state.

“The stakeholders’ meeting convened by Okowa is one of the disappointing government functions I have ever attended. This is a governor believed to know the pains of the people in the oil-bearing communities, yet he is still adopting the same method that previous governments used to shortchange the same people they claim to be fighting for.”