I’m Worried Over Attempts To Discredit Everything I Did In Delta – Uduaghan

Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan

Former Delta State Governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan has expressed concerns over alleged attempts by aides of his successor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa to discredit his administration’s projects and programmes.

He spoke following a post made on Facebook by Okowa’s new media aide, Mr. Dantes Odogwu who berated an education program christened EduMarshal programme initiated by his administration to curb truancy, loitering and indiscipline among primary and secondary pupils/students.

Responding to the post which has caused serious backlash on social media, Uduaghan said: “Dantes Odogwu, Na wahooò. The way you guys try to discredit everything done during my administration is very worrying.

“It is as if we were complete novices in administration. Strangely, the last administration was a PDP one and many of the people in the current administration were also in that administration when some of these projects and programmes were carried out.

“I am taken aback by all you have written about the “defunct” EDUMARSHAL PROGRAMME.

“Who ever compiled that report, obviously did not understand the concept of EDUMARSHAL and never bothered to ask questions.

“We did not inco-operate it into the civil or public service structure because it would have been dead on arrival doing so. Many of the issues raised are not correct.

“The current administration can decide on how to get the many out of school children back to school but definitely not by opening up a public debate on a program it has decided to make defunct.

“You should have opened up this debate before making it defunct.” Uduaghan responded to the post which was followed by series of other comments for and against the original post.

BigPen Online learnt that the report by Odogwu on why Okowa scrapped the programme is already generating controversy and discordant voices in the state as stakeholders also expressed displeasure over the manner the state civil service employment scheme initiated by the former administration was also cancelled.

Reliable sources told BigPen Online on Thursday that Governor Okowa is embarrassed by the post which didn’t explicitly state why government decided to scrap the initiative adding that decision to stop the programme, as was conceptualized by Uduaghan was mooted by an education summit which underline the merit and demerit of the scheme with the present state of the  economy.

Odogwu, in his post concerning the scheme which was nurtured by the Executive Assistant on Education Matters to the former Governor, Ms Stella Blaize, claimed that; “Most of the employees were largely Non Indigenes of Delta State and in most cases over aged for public service engagement, hence, its adhoc nature; There were only Twenty-five professional Educationists in the scheme out of the One Hundred and Forty-nine (149) personnel engaged;”

According to him, sequel to the above, Governor Okowa directed the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education to execute the unbundling processes with a view to fusing the scheme’s activities/functions (where necessary) into the institutional schedules of the Ministry.

“Governor Okowa remains committed to providing basic infrastructure and manpower needs of educational institutions and his administration will continue to give priority to children’s welfare through provision of quality education and moral uprightness”, he said.

Recall that Governor Okowa, had on assumption of office sometime in June 2015, sacked over 300 workers employed by his predecessor on claims of impropriety in their recruitment process, including alleged money-for-job by the state civil service commission among other reasons.