By Ochuko Akuopha

OLEH—THE people of  Isoko, Delta State have urged Governor Ifeanyi Okowa to intervene in what they described as the brewing conflict between the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, DESOPADEC, and oil producing ethnic nationalities in the state over alleged anomalies in the commission’s 2016 budget.

The people, in a letter addressed to the governor, rejected the budget which they said “revealed that equity, justice and fairness had been sacrificed on the altar of selfish, individual and ethnic interest.”

The letter by President General of the Isoko Development Union, IDU, the apex socio-cultural organisation of the Isoko nation, Chief Iduh Amadhe, read: “The total expected expenditure for 2016 fiscal year was put at N28 billion, out of this, the sum of N8 billion was earmarked for recurrent expenditure.

“The Isoko nation considers this figure to be on the high side particularly when it is noted that it is contrary to existing policy of the commission to meet salaries and wages of the staff from the quota allocated to the individual ethnic nationality as the current administration has surreptitiously moved the wages and salaries to recurrent expenditure.

“This, to say the least, is a ploy by the management of the commission to shift this burden from the quantum earning of each of the ethnic nationalities because a particular ethnic group which produces over 60 per cent of the workforce has surreptitiously spread that burden to other ethnic nationalities, whose population workforce is far less than theirs.

“The distribution of the capital budget of N18.3 billion among the ethnic nationalities leaves a very sour taste in our mouth. The Isoko nation finds it difficult to understand the rationale behind the reduction of its share of 13 percent which it had enjoyed in the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years to just 9 percent in 2016; whereas, an ethnic nationality that produces far less than Isoko had its share for capital projects jacked up from 8 percent in 2014 and 2015 to 13 percent in 2016, an increase of 62.5 percent. This is inhuman and unacceptable.

“The Isoko nation does not see the reason why the Urhobo ethnic nationality will get as much as N2.08 billion and Ndokwa ethnic nationality N730 million while the Isoko nation which is the fourth largest contributor to the commission’s fund is left with a paltry N300 million. This is the last straw that has shaken the confidence of the Isoko people in the commission.

“The Isoko people are bewildered at the news that even before implementation, contracts for the projects had been allocated to members of the House of Assembly with their nominated companies, attached.

“We only hope that this is a mere rumour as doing so would amount to a case of the legislators, who are in the House with the votes of their constituents becoming hijackers of patronages that should naturally accrue to them.”