BY SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
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An Onitsha based Journalist turned Gospel advocate, Evangelist Theo Rays Ejikeme has called on the management of the newly created Southeast Development Commission (SEDC) to focus more on the problem of power outage, water supply in the zone.
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Speaking to newsmen yesterday in Onitsha on the expectations from SEDC, Evangelist Ejikeme who is the Convener of “Youth Rendezvous For Greater Igbo Advancement” also called on the Commission to develop sports with a view to uplifting the living standard of the people.
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Ejike identified sport as another area to focus on in the Southeast, noting that “talents and facilities like Rojenny Games Village are wasting away at a time when sport is major lucrative business in the world owing to lack of activities in sport.
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“I am sure that there are lots of talented young ones that do well in football, basketball, athletic, wrestling, boxing, tennis, swimming among others who can achieve global feat if giving opportunity so let SEDC go after such opportunity”
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Among the sports, he listed were football, basketball, athletics, wrestling, boxing, tennis.
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On how to develop sport, he said there should be need for partnership with private sector, adding that traders and businessmen in major cities like Onitsha, Nnewi and Aba and those in diaspora are capable to going into more business if condition is conducive.
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According to him, “What is needed to develop sports is to use government power to back the people in private sector with facilities, favourable polices and protective measures as obtained in Europe and China. And if it takes the management of SEDC to go to Europe and China to borrow ideas and knowledge, let them do so.”
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Ejikeme also emphasised on the need to address the problem of power outage, stressing that irregular power supply is blocking the people from creating opportunities to unleash their potentials to the fullest.
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He said such problems also give room for diseases and sickness especially malaria and High Blood Pressure to continue to attack and kill people unabated.
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His words: “There is no meaningful Initiative that can improve on the living standard of the people in the Southeast without steady power supply. The people need power to boost their business and also to inspire them to think and create more opportunities to further unleash their potentials. As a resident of Onitsha, I can tell you that a good number of traders have the capacity to move into manufacturing by building factories and industries but they cannot do so because there is no power supply
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“Worse so, lack of power supply increases the chances of people to develop High BP, come in contact with infectious diseases and also gives room for mosquitoes to infect people with malaria virus. Whichever way you look at it, lack of power supply is not just holding the people down from making a well deserved progress in business but also exposing the people to killer diseases and sickness, so for me the key underline work to address the challenges facing the Southeast is to generate steady power supply.
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He went further to also harp on the need to work on the issue of access to water lamenting that there is lack of access to water both in the cities and villages across the Southeast zone.
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“It is sad to note that people in the Southeast geopolitical zone in Nigeria also known as Igboland do not have access to water in their kitchen and dinning rooms. In Onitsha people use wheel barrow and buckets to fetch water at a long range and also carry the water manually up to five storey building at this age, is that not a shameful thing”, he added.
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