Akwa Ibom communities lament poor road network, lack of electricity
The people of Ikot Ekpene, Essien Udim and Obot Akara Federal constituency of Akwa Ibom State, have raised concerns over the collapse and poor road network dotting the federal constituency as well as the lack of electricity and youth unemployment.
These were part of the submissions presented to their Federal lawmaker, Patrick Umoh on Friday, in Ikot Ekpene at an event tagged, “Peoples Assembly,” organized by Yiaga Africa with support from the European Union.
The people who spoke from different local governments of the constituency, regretted the lives lost, economic misfortunes and security risk they have suffered amid the collapsed roads and appealed to the legislature to ensure that the construction of the road network is factored into the budget.
They also tasked the executive arm to ensure the implementation of the budget, saying, “The major problem we have here is poor road network. You can hardly move from one community to the other. Farmers that have the farm produce cannot go to market or bring their produce to urban areas. We have witnessed some maternal and infant mortality due to bad road in the course of taking our sick ones to hospital. Recently, we lost two students who had accident in Obot Akara, by the time we could take them to cottage hospital, they were declared dead.
“We believe that if roads in Obot Akara are fixed, security will be improved and many other things will fall into shape. We also need electricity, for over two years in my community, Okon, in Essien Udim, there was no power supply. We are still drinking from our streams, we need water supply.”
While acknowledging the efforts of their representative, Umoh, in securing employment for some persons, the people stated that more needed to be done in that aspect as many youths who are graduates still roam the streets unemployed, even as they called for skills and grant empowerment for youths, women and people with disabilities.
Earlier, the Program Officer, Yiaga Africa, Olaniyan Sanusi said the essence of the Peoples Assembly was to bring the lawmakers or government closer to the people, giving them the opportunity to share information to make people oriented policies.
Sanusi, who emphasized that the government cannot do everything at once, encouraged the people to prioritize their concerns before presenting them to their representatives and ensure they follow up with its implementation.
His words, “Peoples Assembly is aimed at supporting government and people’s interaction in amplifying citizens’ consensus on policy issues. So what I would tell people of Ikot Ekpene, Essien Udim and Obot Akara Federal constituency is that they should seize this opportunity and tell their representative what they want which he will also present to the floor of the house. This will also shape the federal Lawmaker’s actions so that his actions would reflect their own needs and not just carrying out his agenda.
“We have tested this in other parts of the country, and we’ve been able to see positive results from it.”
He also urged the people to make requests within the constitutional bounds of the federal lawmaker and not to make demands beyond his jurisdiction.
” It is a point of note to citizens that the recommendations reached from these deliberations should fall within the responsibilities of the lawmaker. Not to ask him to do the work of the executive or the other arm of government. Clear understanding of this will make it easier for the lawmaker to implement those recommendations,” he added.
One of the participants, Joy Umo, the Secretary of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disability in the South South commended Yiaga Africa for bringing the constituents and their representatives under one roof and giving them especially those living with disability the opportunity to bare their minds.
“A lot of times, we were looking forward to having meaningful conversations, to be able to mention our needs to our legislators to let them understand where it hurts and where it pinches. But this engagement has helped us so much to be able to communicate our hearts to our legislators on how best they can actually improve persons with disability in their various roles in legislation. Yiaga has been able to bridge that gap, build that relationship, we are very happy about this opportunity.”