By Michael Agbaji
As the the 10th National Assembly settle down for the good legislative business, many lawmakers have put in place plans to provide dividend of Democracy to their people, one the senator who have show his blue print is sen.Ned Kwoko representing Delta North Senatorial District of Delta State.
Sen Ned why speaking with News in his office at the National Assembly in Abuja says, representing Delta State is my primary constituency but we represent the Nigeria as whole and we are ready to work for Nigeria and we need the cooperation of every one to work he says”.
Sen.Kwoko also speaking on the issue of principal Officer of 10th Assembly, which he says, Looking at the composition of the principal officer is by election but by numbers,” I’m sure you heard the Senate President mention on the floor that out of the 50 opposition members for example, that 38 signed the nominations of those principal officers/leadership. So what do you say?!
He says, It doesn’t matter if people are complaining, if the parties are complaining, they should write and complain. As far as we know, as far as I know, PDP has not complained, they have not written to complain. So it is presumed that they will settle the situation, certainly he says “”
H also speaking on the flood in Niger-Delta I wish says it does not require Budget but practical solution, says government should stop devastating floodings everywhere.
He said,on the floor a the Senate the matter came up and It has been a recurring issue everywhere across Nigeria, and particularly the Niger Delta areas because, the bottom of the country, if I will use that expression, is the Niger Delta areas. It takes the brunt of the floods that start from Cameroon, through Benue and Niger down to Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers into the Atlantic ocean.
He urge government find the lasting solutions to addressed issue without further delay!
One, the river channels must be dredged, and dredged immediately,I’m not talking about civil servants time, there’s urgency to dredge all these river channels. That’s number one of what must be done. Secondly,bis to build embankments along the waterfronts because, if you dredge the Niger and Benue rivers but you don’t build embankments to forestall future floods, it is a problem.
And thirdly, another third solution is to build dams. These dams can contain whatever flood that we have. And the dams can be used to irrigate farms, the dams can be used to generate power, the dams can also be used to provide homes with water. So there are solutions, it is just a question of how soon can these be done.
According to him,Some of us don’t have the patience that the civil servants have. If you ask me, I’ll say look, let’s go to the… let’s avoid these bureaucracies of budgeting and all that, set up a small group to go and meet the President, President will invite experts in dredging of rivers, will invite experts in building embankments, will invite experts in building dams and tell them how much will it cost to do this end of Nigeria to this end of Nigeria. And the president will make a provision under a special arrangement, outside normal budgetary provisions. Special budgetary provisions can be made by the president, it doesn’t matter how much the cost is, because the cost of floods can be so devastating. Houses are destroyed, lives are lost, farms are destroyed, no light, no livelihood for those who are affected. And millions of people are affected annually he says”
He further advice the president , if he can invite 10 companies known nationally; they could be civil engineering, they could be water/dam engineering, structural engineers, and tell them to give me the cost and get and get national assembly to back him up in this special expenditure and this can be done within one week. One week we can be addressing this issue with all the experts involved and we can simply say to the experts, you know for example dredging of Niger, if the length is about let’s say 500km to dredge the Benue and River Niger, 500km of work that needs to be done, we can say 5 major companies take 100km each, do you understand?
The Company should be Mobilize to site immediately and stop the unnecessary flooding every year, instead of happens ever year, and we just think that it’s enough to pass a resolution and then send it to ministry of environment and ministry of works, and you know how they work there; for the next 6 months, they’ll be one file from another….this is beyond that. It’s just like the oil spillage that you mentioned. Oil spillages and gas flaring, environmental degradations are such huge problems that should not be handled by civil servants. You know, set up a special task force, mandate them to do what has to be done.
According to him, Nigeria should wait and see what happens. You know, there are things that can be done behind the scene, but most of it will be done through communications of the Executive, particularly from the President.
He what says,what in the floor I think is a true reflection of the majority, we have a new leadership, minority leadership that cut across seven parties, not just PDP, so is Wike In all the oth er parties? We just have to wait and see what happens.
