AS part of The Pointer @ 30 anniversary celebration on Monday, October 28th 2024 at Grand Hotels and resorts, Asaba, Excellence in leadership awards were conferred on deserving and distinguished individuals, groups and corporate institutions in various spheres of human endeavours. The underlying spirit or driving motive which informed that aspect of the ceremony was the expediency to celebrate the sublime nobility and historic import in public service culture geared towards accelerated social infrastructural development.
The Governor of Delta State, Rt. Hon Elder Sheriff Oborevwori, was nominated and eventually confirmed by a poll duly carried out amongst our readers as approved by the management and Board of Delta Printing and Publishing Corporation for award in the category of Impactful Leadership And Exemplary Democrat Awards. The process was both objective, pains taken and empirical, informed more by the need to set a benchmark for public servants on the imperative of responsibility and accountability in public administration. I had the privilege of presenting the citation that preceded the award conferment proper where the leadership style of the governor was extolled as uncommon, transformative and impactful, ultimately aimed at leaving behind lasting legacies rather than attracting ephemeral obstructive accolades.
At the end of the well-attended ceremony which was followed by thousands across the country and even more in the diaspora, feedbacks were received to the effect that the award was well deserved and that it was a worthy initiative on the part of The Pointer Newspapers. Equally instructive was that some fellows had maintained that an award from DPPC, publishers of The Pointer to the Governor of Delta State should at best be seen as an in-house recognition that doesn’t call for elaborate celebration.
Well, life is essentially governed by perspectives and you don’t necessarily have to force people to see ‘with your own eyes ‘. Without much of pontification or belabouring the point, I cherished their side of the feedback but earnestly looked forward to my day of vindication for as it is always said, history will vindicate the just. Glad to State that that day of history did not take long years in coming but barely three frugal months as Thisday Newspapers and Arise Television are today conferring the Governor of the Year award on RT Hon Elder Sheriff Oborevwori, Governor of Delta State.
These awards, including the ones that will be made public and still be conferred even after today are indeed public attestations of the remarkable development strides that validate the fact that the governor’s MORE Agenda is impacting on lives, translating landscapes across the nooks and crannies of Delta State. The Governor is running with a burning desire to deliver on transformative projects and infrastructure that will positively impact on lives as lasting legacies and dividends of democracy. This is what has turned the governor into a Chief Inspector of projects. Before now, contractors had become all too familiar with cutting of corners and delivering on shoddy jobs that cannot stand the test of time.
As it stands today, the Twenty months of Oborevwori in office as governor of Delta State has turned the entire State into a massive construction site. The Warri/Effurun flyover projects remain loud legacy statements especially with the engagement of Julius Berger, a globally tested and proven construction firm, to ensure competence and timely delivery. Projects like the Beneku Bridge, the Ughelli-Asaba Expressway, the Orere Bridge, the Isheagu-Ewulu Road, the Okpanam-Ibusa Bypass, the Trans Warri Ode-Itsekiri Road, storm water drainage projects in various urban and sub-urban centres, a multiplicity of internal roads in various towns and cities and link roads in various rural and riverine communities also validate today’s conferment of Governor of the Year Award on Governor Sheriff Oborevwori.
The government of Delta State under Oborevwori has practically shamed professional critics and meddlesome political gladiators with about 513 roads and about 1,300 kilometres of drainage projects simultaneously under construction. These also include Federal Roads, which the Governor has resolved to work on for the benefit of the people
It is also remarkable that the Oborevwori administration has devised a special budgetary strategy of the provision of dedicated allocation to Local Government Areas for roads maintenance, raised from N1b in the 2024 budget, to N2b in the 2025 budget, for each local government.
The government of Elder Sheriff Oborevwori has also devoted 60% of the 2025 budget to capital expenditure, one of the highest ratios of any State budget in the country. It is equally instructive that by the end of 2024, the Delta State Government won the Bill and Melinda Gates Awards for high performance in Primary Health Care. Delta has maintained a comfortable lead in this sector and Oborevwori through his MORE Agenda has insisted on raising the bar and flying the banner really high.
There are currently ongoing renovations, upgrade and re-equipment of about 150 Primary Health Care Centres and 64 General Hospitals .The widely acclaimed success of the State Contributory Health Insurance Scheme to currently over 2m enrollees, the addition of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the Southern Delta University, Ozoro (former Delta State University of Science and Technology, Ozoro), with a new campus opened at Orerokpe, the establishment of the School of Medical and Health Technology, Ovrode, the provision of various critical CTU facilities at the University Teaching Hospital, Oghara, and Specialist Hospitals in the State, and the sustenance and improvement of the Mother and Under-5 Children Free Treatment Programme are records in transformed healthcare sector that even the most vivacious of critics cannot deny.
The Oborevwori performance story stretches across all other sectors, from education to agriculture, housing, transportation, judiciary, commerce, and industry. There has been a high premium on social investments with the expansion of the beneficiaries of the D-CARES programme from 36,000 to over 250,000 in various result areas in less than two years, with additions from other human capital development programmes like the MORE Grant Scheme, MORE Biz-Up by the Job Creation Office, as well as in the agricultural sector where farmers are not only regularly provided inputs and over 6,000 of them financially empowered, but with the government also aiming to raise 50,000 Agro-preneurs in collaboration with the Africa Development Bank-NEPAD Partnership programme for agricultural development.
It is interesting that in these deliveries, the administration has maintained a high level of fiscal discipline, financial prudence, accountability and transparency, relying mostly on its federal allocations and improvement on Internally Generated Revenue, without resorting to borrowing .It was for this reason that the state was ranked tops in the Governance Accountability and Transparency Index (G.A.T.I.) survey, designed to deepen good governance by beaming searchlight on the activities of the 36 states of the federation by the assessment of Public Access to Information and Open Data Initiatives; Budget Transparency and Participatory Budgeting; Audit and Oversight; Anti-Corruption Efforts; Government Responsiveness; Procurement Transparency and Media Freedom, conducted by an independent group of online editors across the country.
These testimonies go a long way to reaffirm that the Oborevwori vision, style and approach to governance constitute credible lessons in democracy, and President Bola Tinubu testified this much recently when he declared that, with more governors like him, the country would be a better place. This attestation will take the tone of louder ovation as we turn into 2025 for a harvest of the investments and yields of the Oborevwori’s development strides for Deltans, driven and delivered through the M.O.R.E. Agenda in Delta State. Today, I remain evidently grateful to God and highly appreciative of our numerous readers for standing by us in both fair and foul times. We also congratulate the government and people of Delta State on this very significant award. As for us here at The Pointer, beyond the feeling of celebration lies the inner strength that comes in knowing that one’s judgement has been vindicated.
