WRITTEN BY BASIL OKOH
Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa has just been arrested and taken in by the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for allegedly stealing N1.3 Trillion from one agency of the Delta State government, DESOPADEC. Just the thought of the humongous sum is making thinking men and women of Delta swoon. People are going berserk when they realize what the sum of N1.3 Trillion could have done for the oil producing communities of the state.
For the many others, their mental acuities cannot even process such a figure, so huge and so out of contemplation in their world. The sheer volume and value of the sum and the intimidating profundity of a theft of such magnitude leaves everyone totally nonplussed. No one seems able to configure what a “trillion” represents in their everyday life. So out of whack.
And the theft is from just one development agency of the Delta state government. Now you can begin to imagine the level of plunder going on in the main ministries of government.
There is no single oil well located in Owa-Alero or the entire Owa community or even from Okowa’s entire local government; Ika Northeast in Delta State. So, he maliciously set up a dubious scheme to steal the wealth of the oil producing communities in Delta state, deny them their development and convert their development fund to his personal fortune. How wicked and gross can a man be?
To pursue and consolidate his graft scheme at the beginning of his tenure in 2015, Okowa worked to change the law setting up DESOPADEC through an executive bill to the State House of Assembly. It was read, deliberated on and passed in a single day and thereafter, he went about seizing control of the board of the agency, populating it with fellow conspirators and loyal brigands. So the actions of Ifeanyi Okowa leading up to the alleged theft of N1.3 trillion was premeditated and planned.
The bill sought changes to the DESOPADEC Law in order to remove the term “local government” and replace it with “communities” which in legal usage is an abstraction. He effectively removed the definitive terms for qualifications as “oil producing”, while everybody watched with disinterest, not knowing what the sly thief was up to.
Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa was to immediately use the changes implanted in the new law to claim part of “Ika South” constituency as Owa land and the Flow-Station at Owa Alidinma as part of an imaginary Owa Kingdom. Festus Chukwuyem Okoh, representing Ika South in the House of Assembly, called this writer, asking leading questions about the suit I instituted challenging Okowa’s grasping rascality on Ika South land.
He expressed doubt that Owa Alidinma is part of Agbor in Ika South and I answered that he should go get a map of Delta State and locate Owa Alidinma in Ika South. He expressed surprise. Finally he asked: “How much have you spent on this case so far?” I wouldn’t tell him and I reluctantly told him so. He then said: “I will get back to you” and ended the call. He never called back. Chukwuyem Festus Okoh is no relation of this writer.
Owa Alidinma is a community in Agbor situated at and located in Ika South. It is part of Agbor Alidinma town where migrants to Agbor Alidinma community live, a Sabon-Gari of sorts. The official map of Delta state locates Owa Alidinma as part of Agbor, lying beside Agbor Alidinma and bounded by Ndemili in Ukwuani LGA in the southwest.
Owa Alidinma is a boundary town and shares no contiguity with any Owa village which are all located in Ika Northeast, the nearest being fifteen kilometres away. But Okowa as governor, deploying his power as the new governor of the state, tried to implement a land grab and claimed that Owa Alidinma is Owa land. This was all done in the effort to include Owa as an Oil Producing “community” to meet his own definition for DESOPADEC and seize control of the Oil Flow Station being built by Pan Ocean Oil Company at Owa Alidinma. He immediately appointed an Owa man as member of the board of DESOPADEC when neither Owa nor the entire Ika Northeast produces a barrel of oil.
Owa is a generic name. It is prefix used to identify a migrant community in many areas of Delta North. Just as you have Owa Oyibu or Owa Alero in Ika Northeast, you also have Owa Abbi in Ukwuani LGA and Owa within Alihagu in Agbor. Many “Owa” live among Bini communities along the road to Benin, Edo State. These are all migrant communities.
This writer filed a suit in the high court of Delta State challenging the nomination of an Owa man Anselm Nwokenye to represent Abavo and Agbor in the board of DESOPADEC. Owa community and Ika Northeast LGA do not produce oil. Second pleading was to seek the courts declaration that Owa Alidinma is an Agbor community located in Ika South Local Government and we submitted the official map of Delta State among other evidence to prove it. The Obi of Owa in his application to the court for joinder in the suit, addressed himself as “the overlord of Owa Alidinma”, a dubious claim considering that he himself and his forebears were subjects of the then Obi of Agbor, the line of kings now called Dein, who were the original suzerains of the kingdom of Agbor.
Basil Okoh Versus the Attorney General and Governor of Delta State was a case to stop Okowa from his land grab in Agbor and growing impunity as governor of Delta State. Mr. Chukwuyem Festus Okoh was the majority Leader of the Delta House of Assembly who submitted the nomination of Anselm Nwokenye from Owa in Ika Northeast as member of the board of DESOPADEC, which was unanimously passed to make a man from a non Oil producing Ika Northeast a member of the board of DESOPADEC, in place of a nominee from Ika South LGA.
With the arrest of Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, these dubious schemes have all come to grief now but not before the loss of N1.3 trillion. Okowa had so much contempt for Agbor and it’s PDP politicians. And that is how he set the framework for the later plunder of DESOPADEC, appointing pliant brigands into the board.
The payments for 13% derivation fund never went directly to any DESOPADEC account but to a holding account which was not made known to the board or staff of DESOPADEC. It was from this holding account that the sum was splintered to different accounts and what was left was paid to DESOPADEC.
Okowa from the beginning of his tenure as governor of Delta state had clear ideas what he wanted to do with DESOPADEC. The loss of N1.3 trillion is the result of that clear intention.
This is the beginning of this story.
