Bayelsa NUJ Chairman Thanks NDDC For Lighting Up The State

 

The Chairman of Nigeria Union of Journalists, Bayelsa State Council, Tonye Yemoleigha has commended the Niger Delta  Development Commission for lighting up Bayelsa.

He also thanked the board for indulging in other corporate social responsibilities especially in the education sector which he said will help and uplift the region later in life.

Speaking on Thursday in Yenagoa when the council paid a courtesy call on  Godknows Alameiseigha, the state representative and director of NDDC, Yemoleigha maintained that  operation light up  Bayelsa  was a welcomed development.

He however pleaded with the board to do more especially in the rural communities maintaining that because their presence is not all that felt in the rural communities, it seems that they are not doing more.

 He promised more collaboration with the board adding that the relationship will go a long way to sanitizing the society.

He said:" The job of the media is to hold political office holders and the government to account and to also highlight their achievements so that development can be felt by the people.

"We owe it as a duty to report  criminal activities  and partner with security agencies to see how we can reduce criminality and that is what we have been doing in our engagement.

"We are all pointing at the directions of development including  NDDC and it is  only when we have that understanding and synergy that we will do a lot together  for the good of our people.

 "We will deepen this relationship and we ask our people to always be law abiding  and own projects.When you see one, be it projects from government or interventionist agencies like NDDC,you don't need to vandalize them. 

"While everybody is talking development in your community you shouldn't be the one to take away development from you community."

Speaking earlier, the state director of Nigeria Delta Development Commission, Bayelsa State,  Godknows Alameiseigha had asked the media to help in sensitizing the populace on the need to secure projects sighted in their domains.

He said that   it is only when the citizens do so that projects will be  started and finished adding that some parts of the projects are always removed before they are completed

Maintaining that NDDC projects are not always abandoned but stalled, he said that some of those issues arise because of constant change of baton in the board stating that the current managing director should be allowed to stay and do more.

Thanking  President Bola Tinubu for appointing  Samuel Ogbuku as the managing director of NDDC, he asked for more synergy between the board and Bayelsa State Government to enable them achieve the aim of developing the state.

He said: "We should educate our people on the need to own our projects and not vandalize the projects. Look at this operation light up Bayelsa, could you  believe that people are going to remove the solar lights. 

"Our people can't go to rural communities now for that project because militant are on the river."

He pleaded with the state and local government to look after the projects already sited by NDDC maintaining that after building, the projects are always handed over to  the state and local governments to manage.

Maintaining that NDDC can't handle all the projects with only 164 billion naira  that is yearly allocated to the state, he called on the state government to collaborate with the board so that most of these projects can be initiated and actualized.

 "State Government should advise which community should have what project. Our national Assembly members should also try their best  adding that boards should be allowed to stay for sometime before being dissolved instead changing them at intervals.

"We should forget our party affiliations and come together, form a  synergy to build our state.

"I commission you Journalists today to be project monitoring ambassadors. Help us to monitor these projects and sensitize the populace  so that the society will be a better place to stay."