Workers and visitors to the headquarters of the Benin-Owena River Basin Development Authority (BORBDA), on Monday could not gain access to the office as protesting host communities blocked the entrance gate to the agency chanting war songs.
The protesters, comprising elders, women and youths drawn from Obayantor II, Ekosa, Agbomwoba and Awanoba communities that make up the federal agency’s host communities, said the protest was designed to end what they called 43 years marginalisation of the host communities in the appointments to the board of BORBDA and promotion of indigenous people to positions of senior managerial cadre.
“We are on a peaceful protest to drive home our demands in respect of the appointments made into the management of the Benin-Owena River Basin Development Authority whereby no single host community person was considered despite they were eminently qualified,” they said.
Their convergence on the BORBDA headquarters, the protesters said was to demand that the Oba’s recommendations for the appointment of someone from the host communities be respected by the appointing authorities.
They appealed to President Bola Tinubu to put an end to the many years of their marginalisation by appointing qualified person of Benin extraction as Managing Director in fulfillment of the Federal character principles and in line with the recommendation of the Benin monarch, Oba Eware II.
They hinted that the protest became inevitable when they discovered that overtures made to the different appointing authorities of the Federal Government for the appointment of a host communities person as managing director on the directives of the Oba of Benin, including the supervising Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Senate President, among others were not honoured.
The protesters vowed to sustain their actions until the president accedes to their demands following the recommendations to that effect vide several letters from the Palace of the Oba of Benin to the relevant authorities in Abuja are honoured.
They used the opportunity to draw attention to what they called poor corporate social responsibility from the agency in the many years of its operation in the communities with little or nothing of benefits to them and called for a change of approach.
It will be recalled that the Federal Government had in January 2025 constituted the boards of the 12 river basins across the country with the Benin-Owena River Basin Development Authority having Mr Mike Ezomo appointed chairman of the Benin-Owena Development Authority, with Femi Adekanbi as Managing Director.
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