{"id":7,"date":"2014-08-10T09:50:33","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T09:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=7"},"modified":"2014-08-10T09:51:21","modified_gmt":"2014-08-10T09:51:21","slug":"delta-micro-credit-scheme-nigerias-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=7","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Delta Micro Credit Scheme Nigeria\u2019s Best"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"photo-5\"<\/a>Barrister Christopher Chike Ogeah is the Delta State Commissioner for Information. In this interview with Osa ERESOYEN, he speaks on many issues affecting the state especially the \u201cDelta Finishing Strong\u201d programme<\/p>\n

What does finishing strong mean and what is behind the programme?<\/p>\n

Well, you are aware that since the governor got re-elected for the second term, we told the world severally, there was a period of litigations. Initially even before the litigations, there were periods of elections, re-run and all that took some time then there were prolonged litigations.<\/p>\n

Basically the governor has a three point agenda: Infrastructural development, Peace and Security and Human Capital Development, immediately he started doing that there were those prolonged litigations and then he got over that and of course all hands on plough, we got into the real mint of it and that was why we described what we are seeing today as a harvest of projects all over the state.<\/p>\n

We keep telling everyone that Delta is a massive state, we have over five million people, very diverse and so whatever project you are having in one place, you must replicate it in the other place, it is not the kind of state where you just develop the state capital and then everybody shouts hosanna and you have done a great job.<\/p>\n

So, because of that we have to develop what we called the two major economic zones. Delta is the only state that has two viable airports and two massive economic zones in this country; one of course is the oil and gas zone of Warri and the economic zone of Asaba. Asaba is 10 minutes away from the biggest market in Sub-Saharan African and that is why we say we don\u2019t have projects in Delta really, what we have are programmes because for everything we do, every road we construct, any airport we build it is always with a multiplier effect.<\/p>\n

But basically finishing strong means we have projects scattered all over the state because this governor has a big vision. So, we had the mega, massive and empowerment projects because like we keep saying you build all the bridges, the roads and the people are hungry, there is still a massive problem. That is why we developed our Delta Micro Credit Scheme which had been acclaimed to be the best in the country, other states have come to find out the model and how we did it because that scheme had a double effect.<\/p>\n

You have just somebody, maybe a woman that was just doing a one man business in her house, doing the Akwosha or making beads and then you give her access to this credit, she employs two people and before you know what, this thing is going, she employs 10 people, she employs 20.
\nIf you were not in government, what area would you have said this government needs to do more?<\/p>\n

Well, that is difficult but go and meet that woman that has lost her daughter or lost a sister because they could not afford maternal care for that sister or that daughter when she was pregnant and then she has to go to a quack and she lost her baby.<\/p>\n

Since Uduaghan came in and started his free antenatal and under five year old children care, everybody walks to the hospital we even have the ambulances going to the rural areas taking care of our people, taking medical care to the rural areas and all that. So, if you ask that kind of woman, she would tell you the legacy this man has brought.<\/p>\n

At a time the state government collaborated with Obasanjo Farms in Ogwashi-Uku, what is happening there now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The farms are there, first class, we took the British High Commissioner who as I speak with you is visiting Delta for the first time, he was there and he could not believe what he saw. He said that was the best farm he has seen in Nigeria since he\u2019s been here, it is on record, on tape, he said it. I remember when we started some people thought we were not doing it right or whatever. It is a massive agricultural farm like you rightly said in collaboration with Obasanjo Farm just in Ogwashi-Uku here.<\/p>\n

So, these are all the kind of things we are doing, the whole idea like I said is to be able to get these different areas to be broken down so that when this oil is not there we would have alternatives, we are saying whatever it is we don\u2019t want to depend on it solely.<\/p>\n

Some persons said Okpanam Road was abandoned because some indigenes there revolted against the governor. Why did you leave it unattended?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No! That is not true, the issue of the Okpanam road, the governor has said severally even in his last media interaction he said it. It is simple, the drainage system, the underground drainage is a valley and needs greater attention. So all those areas even this place the governor said it as well, this our viewing centre is supposed to be another massive drainage area, with a lot of this distortion over time water keeps returning and you know water will always find its level when water. So, they have to design, we are not saying that because of that we throw our hands in the air, no. as we speak now a major design is on and it is all underground.<\/p>\n

Vanguard Newspapers will be printing any moment from now in Asaba. Do you think that company can print for Pointer rather than printing in Lagos?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No! The Pointer thing is an aberration, is never the thing, Pointer has as I speak to you an office, they even have land where they would put their printing machines which have been ordered. Pointer is going to be printing for itself. That is part of the plan and it is directly under my watch and supposed to be one of the things I should be benchmarked at the end of the day. We had issues with getting the money budgeted over the years, they have been trying to do it but this time I think they have put it in the budget now.<\/p>\n

What about your IPP Project, Deltans are looking forward to your relieving them of power failure?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes the agreement that has been signed but you know electricity is a funny thing, it is one of those things in the exclusive list so it is a federal government project and if we don\u2019t get our agreements right, the same problem that happened to us even with our own normal power stations here will happen with the IPP, the power will be elusive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barrister Christopher Chike Ogeah is the Delta State Commissioner for Information. In this interview with Osa ERESOYEN, he speaks on many issues affecting the state especially the \u201cDelta Finishing Strong\u201d programme What does finishing strong mean and what is behind the programme? Well, you are aware that since the governor got re-elected for the second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-state"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/photo-5.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions\/9"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}