By Austin Ogwuda
THE clock is ticking, in 6 days from now, precisely the 9th of August 2025, it will be exactly two months when the Deputy Governor of Delta State, Nigeria, Sir Monday Onyeme made a firm promise to Deltans, Ndokwa people in particular, assuring electricity connection via the long overdue Okpai IPP.
Onyeme had on the 9th of June this year, while fielding questions on a live programme on Arise TV stated that a lot of progress have been made to ensure stable supply of electricity in Ndokwa land, host to several oil prospecting and exploration companies, including the Independent Power Plant (IPP) at Okpai.
He appeared on that interview at the heat of protests tagged ‘Light Up Ndokwa Nation’.
His words: “On the issue of electricity, it is true that a large part of Ndokwa nation have no electricity for a very long time, we have had reasonable discussions with the electricity company and I can assure you that government is working; from Tuesday after the public holiday, the electricity company will mobilize and commence work, so, in the next two months, electricity will be restored in Ndokwa land”.
Also reinforcing Onyeme’s firm assurance on the issue, the State Commissioner for Works (Rural Roads) and Public information, Charles Aniagwu at a press briefing in Asaba, said efforts were being made restore the longstanding electricity challenge in Ndokwa.
Aniagwu, who spoke in company Festus Ahon, Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Governor and Olisa Ifeajika, Executive Assistant to the Governor on Public Enlightenment (Projects and Policies) had this to say.
“For a very, very long time transmission remained the exclusive preserve of the federal government and that meant that even when you generate you will need to upload the power you have generated into the national grid for onward distribution to the other parts of the country.
“But over time, there were some form of deregulation, which started from the Jonathan administration which paid to it for some private sector players to come in and that made it possible for certain individuals in the private sector to invest in power generation and distribution.
“Only recently, certain form of liberalisation has taken place and to the extent now that states can go into some form of generation and distribution but under certain conditions.
“The Okpai power project is not a state government project, we can only begin to make effort to see how we can begin to also benefit and that is ongoing.
“I am also aware the Deputy Governor of the State, Sir Monday Onyeme who is from the Ndokwa nation have been mandated by the governor to begin to look into how we can ensure that our brothers and sisters over there gets connected.
“They have had several meetings with them and effort is being made to deal with the challenges between the then Power Holding Company before it moved to the Benin Electricity Distribution Company as to how to settle certain outstanding liabilities so that they can begin a process of getting them reconnected to the grid.
“Because there was this absence of power that power distribution channels along that corridor being energized, it made it possible for some criminals to tamper with the power infrastructure in that corridor so which means that it’s now a question of going to provide certain power or energy infrastructure for them to be effectively connected”.
The question now is: can the Deputy governor’s firm assurance come to fruition in few days time when it would be two months deadline he referred to?
Can Onyeme words who publicly made the promise on behalf of the State government and also a proud son of Ndokwa land be merely dismissed as being “politically correct”, time will, certainly tell.
