By Austin Ogwuda
Incumbent Governor of of Delta State, Elder, Rt. Hon.Sheriff Francis Orohwedor Oborevwori can be described as a man of destiny or rather say benevolence smiles at him constantly.
Despite stiff opposition mounted to stop him, his godfather stood firmly behind him while the gubernatorial race lasted.
The doyen of Delta politics, former governor James Onanefe Ibori wanted his preferred anointed son, a bureaucrat, David Edevbie, an aspiration Okowa turned down because he wanted a pound of flesh from Edevbie and secondly has resolved to assert himself as a king maker too.
Oborevwori could have been counted among the litany of impeached Speakers in the country.
But he survived, call it miraculous or otherwise , the bottom line was that he escaped.Although he schooled his fellow lawmakers on how to survive such ‘coups’ through tutorials in conflict management which was the magic wand that saved him.
… Delta takes the biggest chunk of the Federal Allocation
Among the ranking States in the sharing of the largesse known as oil revenue from the Federation Account is Delta State.
But let me shock you, Delta State climbed the ladder to the first position recently by receiving the highest Allocation of N1.51 trillion from Federation Account between JANUARY – JUNE, 2023.
The Report by the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) showed the States received about N817.79 billion from the N2.32 trillion total distributable allocation in the first quarter and N688.2billion of the N2.04trillion allocation in the second quarter.
Apart from the share of the statutory allocations, the report said the nine oil-producing states, namely Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers received additional allocations as their share of the 13 percent derivation revenue to bring their total receipts to about N869.09 billion.
On a state-by-state basis, the report showed that Delta State received the largest allocation of N102.79 billion among the 36 states in the second quarter, followed by Akwa Ibom and Rivers states, which received N70.01 billion and N69.73 billion respectively.
Ekiti, Ebonyi and Nassarawa States received the lowest allocations of N16.95 billion, N16.84 billion and N16.71 billion respectively.
Apart from drawing greater percent of the Allocation, it is not also a secret that we are doing well in the generation of Internally Generated Revenue IGR.
It would be unfair not to state here that the governor inherited a humongous debit profile from Okowa.However, with assemblage of result oriented cabinet and retinue of Advisers, the issue of justification of every Kobo spent is undeniable, isn’t it.
Therefore, the era of saying ‘ego adi-ro’ meaning there is no money is gone.There is money, he has a friendly State Assembly and relatively peaceful environment, give me reason why he can’t deliver.
