Delta state former governorship aspirant in the 2015 general election, Johnson Opone, has claimed that the administration of the immediate past governor of the state, Emmanuel Uduaghan ran the oil-rich state aground with massive debt.
Mr. Opone who made this claims while playing host to the leadership and members of the Indigenous Correspondents’ Chapel (ICC) of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Delta State during a media parley in Kwale, (Utagba-Ogbe), the administrative headquarters ofNdokwa West local government area, noted that the immediate past governor, Uduaghan plugged the economy of the state into a bad shape before leaving office.
“Our erstwhile governor, His Excellency Uduaghan, left a staggering debt for the state to bear”.
Opone, who was said to have been installed as the President-General (PG) of Ndokwa Neko Union (NNU), by governor Ifeanyi Okowa, Deputy Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly (DTHA), Friday Osanebi, and the member representing Ndokwa/Ukwani Federal Constituency of Delta State, Ossai Nicholas Ossai, however disassociated himself from those he said were criticizing Okowa led administration for monumental failure.
“I am not one of those who is castigating his government for non-achievement, rather, I am praising him for the one he has done within the merger resources available to the state”, disclosing that the nation is been govern with what he termed a ‘resources allocation syndrome’, “the state merger resources cannot carry even recurrent expenditure. And these are one of those things as a charted accountant; we are also advocating at the federal level that our government should not over borrow, servicing the debt becomes a burden to the good people of Nigeria”.
It would be recalled that at his inception in office, governor Ifeanyi Okowa had over bloated the debt profile of the state incurred by the immediate past administration of Uduaghan. Mr. Uduaghan had also said the debt profile as announced by his predecessor was over blown, calling for caution as “anything released to the media is difficult to correct” adding that since the announcement, the debt profile as claimed by Okowa has drastically reduced.
