Communities, groups stir Tai, Ogoni with STAND campaigns
A 3-day of intense enlightenment activities about the project, Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in the Niger Delta (STAND) has ended over the weekend in the Kpite community in the Tai Local Government Area of Rivers State.
The ends which started on last Thursday, November 12, 2009 from the STAND centre in kpite community with a vivid road show, our correspondent who attended the events report that the road show involves motorcade, motorbikes, and scores of members of the management committee of the Kpite STAND centre and people drawn from the several villages of the Tai area and Youth Corpers. Amidst deep drumbeats and announcement about the project amidst massive distribution of leaflets about STAND, the parade held.
Addressing participants at the beginning of the ceremony, Hon. Dickson Baride N; the Councillor representing Ward 2 in the Tai Legislative Assembly who also doubles as the Chairman of the Kpite STAND management committee, while addressing the huge crowd, charged participants, “Please see this opportunity provided us by DFID, SDN, CEHRD etc as a rare opportunity. We have to make the best use of it. This is an opportunity others are looking for. Let's carry on today's activities as civilized and peaceful people; we will march with you until we conclude today's activities”. Baride, who is also the Tai Legislative Assembly House Committee Chairman on Youths and Sport assured.
The STAND activists marched through major communities in the Tai Kingdom of the Ogoni ethnic nationality such as Kpite, Botem, Korokoro, Koloma, etc, stopping over at their various town squares, and addressing the locals on the benefit and philosophy of STAND. While chanting the song “Tai people come and see the Light, the Light of STAND, come and see the Light Tai Kingdom, Amen STAND is the light of Good Governance, STAND is the light of Development”. Jubilant villagers and STAND campaigners danced to the rhyme of the melody as drum beats rent the atmosphere.
After the road show carnivals, the following Friday (November 13, 2009), the STAND team offered free internal access, email accounts, face book to the natives, and also teach them how to use internet to access local government budgets and ensure good governance by the local people. Also, on same day an international celebrated movie called Poison Fire was shown to the locals. The movie is about gas glaring and Shell's negative activities in Ogoni land and the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. In an interview with a STAND consultant and community mobilization expert, Mr. Amaechi Kelechi Justine told our correspondent, “The activities of the week, are aimed at arousing the consciousness of the people, so that the Kpite and its cluster communities will take full ownership of the STAND project”.
Sebastian Kpalap, a STAND project officer who led other staff from the Center for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) to the forum, commenting on the Saturday, November 14, 2009, town hall meeting which was held at the extra-modern Kpite town hall which also partly houses the STAND centre. “The town hall meeting was an interactive session on budget, transparency and good governance, community participation in governance. We started the town hall meeting about 11:30pm and we ended in late, because of the nature of interaction and issues discussed” Kpalap revealed.
Speaking further Mr. Samson Ikpekhia who hails from the Afuze village community in the Owan Local Government Area of Edo State told our correspondent at the event. “The Tai people are very peaceful and receptive people. We as youth corpers are happy to be here in the villages and participate in the activities of STAND. The people love corpers. We enter their houses as if is ours. They don't want to know where you are from and the language you speak. Those in the northern parts of Nigeria and other places who rape and kill corpers should come here to learn from the Tai people how to treat corpers. I hear that even other parts of Ogoni are good and receptive like Tai people”. Ikpekhia, a youth corper said. He led other youth corpers serving in the area to participate in the activities.
The 3-day sensitization programme which was put together in the Tai Kingdom of Ogoni by the Kpite STAND centre in conjunction with the Stakeholders Democracy Network (SDN) attracted people from far and near. The STAND sensitization events which drew community participants from the chiefs and elders councils across the various villages and towns of the Tai kingdom were colourful, our correspondent can report. Similar activities have been held in Ogbia and Elebele STAND centres, all in the Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. This paper gathers that, the sensitization event for Bodo will commence soon.
The STAND project was first implemented by Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) with support from the Department for International Development (DFID), the United Kingdom (UK) development agency in early 2006. Sebastian Kpalap of CEHRD said STAND was initiated as a poverty reduction strategy by increasing transparency and accountability in local government budget and implementation as well as service delivery to the people in the rural area. IDASA, the South Africa NGO was carrying out STAND activities through state partners. In Rivers State, CEHRD coordinates the Bodo and Kpite centres, in Delta State; the Niger Delta Professionals for Development (NDPRODEV) handles the Oporoza and Ugborodo STAND centres in the Warri South-West Local Government Area, and in Bayelsa State Pronatura International (PNI) manages the Ogbia and Elebele STAND centres.
In early December, 2007, IDASA shut its Nigeria's country office in Abuja and the temporary one in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State. Consequently, DFID took the STAND project from IDASA and handed over to the Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN), the London-based charitable organization with a country office in Port Harcourt, to coordinate the implementation and execution of the STAND projects through the state partners like CEHRD, PNI and NIPRODEV.
