Youths in Riverine Area of Ondo took to the streets:Laments 10 years of power outage.
The youths, under the aegis of Ilaje Advancement Forum (IAF), mobilised themselves at Igbokoda, headquarters of Ilaje Local Government Area at the weekend, chanting “Ko sina, ko sibo,” meaning, “no light, no election.” we no go gree ooo
It led to traffic gridlock in the town and paralysed economic activities for many hours as the youths armed with placards embarked on peaceful procession. Exercising their national rights through protest
The placards read: “Ilaje: enough is enough; What offence has Ilaje people committed, Ondo State government has failed us, Governor Olusola is joking with us, OSOPADEC is fake, NDDC is fraud; No light, no election,”etc
Leader of the association to be known as Tokunbo Ehinmowo, got worried and explained the deplorable state of the riverine area, adding that the Ilaje nation, despite its huge natural resources, is suffering such neglect. According to her, the unavailability of power had put the people into untold hardship for the past 10 years.
She lamented that there are dearth of industries, factories, prevalence of infrastructural decay, environmental degradation, poor empowerment programmes, which she attributed to failure of their representatives at all levels.
However, OSOPADEC chairman, Gbenga Edema, sympathised with the people of the area, assuring that efforts are in top gear by the state government to ensure that there is restoration of electricity in the senatorial district.
He, however, noted that the menace been lingering in the area for over a decade, revealing that he had been at the forefront of the vanguard to decry the outright marginalisation of the riverine communities.
“I sympathise with them and also feel their pains because an idle hand is the devil’s workshop. We agree that electricity is key to development. A lot of our youths who have trained as artisans, need energy.”
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