By Amos Okioma
Yenagoa
A group under the aegis of Campaign for Democracy and Development in
Bayelsa (CDDB) has called for Bayelsans to imbibe the culture of searching and choosing credible leaders at the 2019 elections in the state.
The group’s Executive Director, Dr. Ekiyor Welson, made the appeal at the weekend during the flag-off of its awareness and sensitization campaign in Ogbia Local Government Area of the state.
He also pointed out: “What Bayelsans need at this crucial moment is social change and development made possible by the institution of participatory democracy which is currently lacking in the state, a situation that has made the people alienated from their own social heritage”.
According to him, the political class has used the cover of democracy to subjugate, disenfranchise and undermine the people of the state in the past 18 years, making them poorer, less productive and completely worse off, adding that “they do this in connivance with armed wings, hold the people hostage and subvert them to the dictates of few in government.”
He described the story of Ogbia as a contradiction, being the local government area (Oloibiri), where oil well was established after oil was discovered there in 1956, but has no portable drinking water, roads and no electricity after 63 years.
He, in addition to condemning the Nigerian state for the neglect of the area, also blamed the people who refused to agitate for a better life in addition to local leaders and state who decided to pursue selfish interest rather than common interest, as manifested in millionaires being produced in the state building mansions and castles while their communities including Oloibiri being in shambles.
He therefore called on the people of the state in general and Ogbia in particular to start the process and imbibe the culture of searching for, finding and electing their preferred leaders at all levels if they are to experience development as dividends of democracy and deliver themselves from chronic absence of development.