Photos : Governor Uduaghan’s Wife Grabs Delta State Government Land, Uses State Funds For Private School

Uduaghan’s Wife Grabs Delta State Government Land, Uses State Funds For Private School

 With Delta State Commissioner for Information, Chike Ogeah, constantly stating that the state’s dwindling monthly allocations were affecting several government projects, some sources in the state accuse Sheila Roli Uduaghan, wife of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, of using public funds to build a gigantic multi-billion naira private school on government land she allegedly grabbed.

Our sources, including senior civil servants in the state, said Mrs. Uduaghan’s school project is sited on land that originally belonged to the Delta State House of Assembly. “The plan was to build a police station and a clinic on the site, but the First Lady grabbed the land,” said one source.

SaharaReporters learnt that an engineer named Mr. Adeleke, chairman of Peculiar Company, was handling the school project, which is part of the governor’s wife’s purported pet project name, “I Care Foundation.” Several of our sources disclosed that the project was being financed with state funds.

The project, which comprises nursery, primary, secondary and theological schools, is expected to open in September 2014. A source said most of the students are expected to be boarding.

Some state civil servants condemned the project, saying it would end up as a big waste of public funds. They compared it to the “Nkoyo Ibori Children’s Referral Medical Center, Agbarho,” a project initiated by the wife of former Governor James Ibori, Theresa Nkoyo Ibori.

Questioned on the project, Information Commissioner Chike Ogeah remarkably refused to mention the owner of the project. He merely said, “Actually the project is a private one and my duty is not to monitor individual private projects but rather government projects.”

But two Government House sources told our correspondent that the project was a bad development, pointing out that Governor Uduaghan last year had frustrated the hope of children and their parents by shutting down the model schools in the state. “Why should the governor close down model schools and now he is allowing his wife to establish her own private school where money will be extorted from parents?” one source asked.

Another source said, “The governor’s wife has always claimed [being] born again. Yet, she is involved in things that never depict the way of Christ. That project is a project running into several billions of naira from the state treasury. Can you imagine that [a] few weeks ago, this so-called ‘born again’ issued a quit notice to women selling wares from kiosks at the Asaba International Airport. And that’s because she was taking a branch of her fast food ‘OTRES’ to the airport. She warned the petty trading women that failure to quit, they would be arrested and detained.”

An aggrieved member of the Delta House of Assembly asserted that the land in question belonged to the legislature, but because of the governor’s overbearing influence, his wife was not questioned when she grabbed it. The lawmaker added that the assembly would have flexed its muscle if a less powerful person than Mrs. Uduaghan had grabbed land belonging to it. “We would have been issuing summons here and there for the usurper to make appearance at the floor of the House for questioning,” said the source.

A senior civil servant asked: “What business is Mrs. Uduaghan into that can afford her this gigantic school project if [she’s] not using Delta State funds? This was how James Ibori’s wife, Nkoyo, used the state’s funds amounting to N350 million for the moribund Children Referral Hospital at Agbarho and later turned it to a private hospital all in the name of pet project.”

When Mrs. Ibori’s project was launched in November 2000, the then First Lady had stated that her foundation would use funds raised to upgrade the healthcare facilities for children in the state by embarking on the construction and equipping of a Referral Medical Center for children. The center was supposed to offer prompt medical attention to children in distress and various health complications.

However, the community mobilized against Mr. Ibori’s wife to stop her project when they discovered that she had already converted the hospital to her private property, even though the project was funded by the Delta State government and other donors, including oil companies.