Stakeholders ask FG to split Benin-Owena river basin authority over alleged marginalisation

Concerned stakeholders of the Benin Owena River Basin Development Authority (BORBDA) have called on President Bola Tinubu to consider splitting the agency due to alleged marginalisation of Ondo state, Ekiti state, and Delta state by Edo state.

The stakeholders also welcomed the appointment of Femi Adekanmbi as BORBDA’s managing director (MD), dismissing recent protests in Benin City as “unnecessary” and “politically motivated”.

Protesting in Akure, the aggrieved stakeholders expressed displeasure over the development, questioning the opposition against Adekanmbi’s appointment.

John Ayeni, national president of BORBDA stakeholders forum, noted that since its establishment in 1976, Ondo state has only produced one managing director, making Adekanmbi’s appointment a “suitable choice”.

Ayeni stressed that Adekanmbi’s “resourceful managerial antecedents” make him capable of salvaging the agency.

He claimed that Saliu Ahmed, an Edo state indigene, served two eight-year terms, making it suitable for another state to lead.

“We members of the Stakeholders Forum of Benin-Owena River Basin Development Authority were suddenly alarmed by the activities of a group of Barbarian that went viral on the social media that barricaded and sealed off the Headquarters of the Authority at Obayantor a village 24 kms outside Benin-City metropolis along Benin-Sapele Express way,” Ayeni said.

“Their uncivilized action imitable of the Early Man during the Stone Ages Era were not only Condemnable but irrational, uncivilized misinformed, and uncalled for.

“For the information of the world at large, Benin-Owena River Basin Development Authority, Benin-City was one of the Basin Authorities Statutorily enacted by law in 1976 under the Military Adminisration of General Olusegun Obasanjo the then military Head of State.

“Its operations cover the entire Edo State, Ondo State, Ekiti State and the Delta State Northern Senatorial District i.e. the Igbo speaking areas of Delta State.

“By law, its Headquarters was to be sited at the least developmed of the two components that formed the Authority then.

“These were Bendel and Ondo States. So originally the Headquarters was supposed to be in Akure.

“Serious agitations in 1983 that the Headquarters was wickedly and unduly located in the den of armed robbers led to the split of the Authority into two autonomous entities on July 1984.”

The BORBDA president questioned the calculation of 42 years of marginalisation, highlighting that Edo state indigenes held leadership positions for 25 years and 9 months.

Ayeni called on the national assembly to consider splitting the authority into two autonomous entities due to the threats posed.