New Acting Managing Director of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), covers up potholes on Uniport street

It was a calm Tuesday evening, the sun was setting and I had just closed work for the day. Alighting from the taxi I boarded, I notice something unusual just by the entrance to the street. It's a signboard, a type I had seen before in some  rural communities. It bears a familiar symbol and name that catches my attention first - Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). Then my eyes stroll to other details on the board:

The Presidency

Project: Remedial works on failed and unmotorable sections of Gana-Ama (sic) Road, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State

Contractor: …

Client: Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) 

Determined to make a difference …

I stood there, starstruck, reading. Then I started laughing at it, not minding the cars that were driving by and watching me laughing at the signboard. 

Eheeeen! Sometime last week, I had noticed some heavy duty vehicles were busy on the road and wondered what they were up to. I could hear their pretty noisy sounds cracking away and I knew they were probably working on the bad spots on the road leading into the street. When I eventually stepped outside on my way to the market was when I confirmed that the road was being repaired. Little did I know that it was the newly appointed Acting Chairman of the Niger Delta Commission that commissioned the covering of the potholes on my street. 

Yes, there was some sort of excitement when I heard the news about the appointment of a new chairman. The news item (a press statement I think), had his name wrongly spelt. I had to do some digging to be sure it was the same Professor that lives on my street. I felt some sort of joy for something I thought would have no effect or bearing on my existence, but had a gut feeling that something would be felt as na Prof wey we sabi him children those days, wey we go go dia house go pluck guava donkey years ago na. There was some sort of closure abi wetin I go call am?  My feelings weren't far from the realities in Nigeria at least, where people who are appointed to occupy certain positions are 'expected' to bring some DIVIDENDS OF DEMOCRACY home. A former President of this country was accused of doing nothing for his people, remember? The executhieves, legislators and senators who rig their way to the helm of affairs in the country are always expected to make their constituencies feel their presence or existence by doing some road, or building a magnificent house in the village for themselves, or dumping one transformer in the community. 

Okay nau. Mr NDDC Chairman has brought the dividends of democracy home. He has awarded a project to repair 'unmotorable' portions of the road on my street in Ghana-Ama, even when the internal road to my other house in Omuchiorlu, Aluu, has been begging to be constructed for YEARS! I'm pretty sure other internal roads are in dire need of construction, not just repair, but the commission and the commissioner are more concerned about filling potholes on my street, something the university community has taken care of from time to time over the years. 

So, if you're reading this and you're the ones who are truly close to the new Acting Chairman or his sons which I hear are big shots now, please, biko, tell them my street in Omuchiorlu, Aluu, also needs serious attention. The rains are coming and I don't want to buy rain boots just to manoeuvre my way to work and back.