Warri women write Buhari, Osinbajo over $6m, N1b Ugborodo fund
Itsekiri leaders has called for probe of $6 million and N1 billion provided for the construction of Ugborodo New Town in Warri Kingdom, Delta State, is being questioned by Itsekiri leaders.
The funds which were paid by Chevron and Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, DESOPADEC, into the account of Itsekiri Regional Development Council, IRDC, at different times are feared missing.
As a result of the situation, Ugborodo community, Saturday Vanguard gathered, is on the verge of being washed away by the sea, while there is nothing on the ground to suggest that a new town has been constructed for the oil-rich community.
Worried about the issue, Warri Women Consultative Assembly, Itsekiri youths and elders took the matter to the Chairman of Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-Corruption, Prof Itse Sagay, urging him to look into the issue in his capacity as head of the anti-graft committee.
A petition detailing the history of the funds from the donation of $6 million by Chevron to the provision of N1 billion by DESOPADEC, was handed over to him. Verification Committee Attached to the protest letter signed by Chief Rita Lori-Ogbebor and Sir A.S Mene, was a document authored by Itsekiri Leaders of Thought, ILOT, Verification Committee on DESOPADEC, which revealed that only 15 units of bungalows at foundation level were the structures at the site of the proposed new town.
At the forum in Lagos, Sagay, who is also of the Itsekiri ethnic extraction, did not only condemn the mismanagement of community development funds but promised to take appropriate action. Sagay, a chief of the Warri kingdom, lamented that the misappropriation of such funds was common in Itsekiri nation unlike in Urhobo, Ijaw and other oil producing ethnic groups.
He urged the youths and women of Itsekiri land to rise against such practices, adding that they possessed the right to do so. I’ve been trying to take action—Sagay His words: “I have been trying to take action on this issue in the last two years. I think Warri has a structural problem.
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