I started my day at Kutiang II, Obudu. Kutiang II is a remote village sandwiched between Bendi in Obanliku and Bateriko in Boki LGA, Cross River State. The community is to say the least deprived of all modern amenities.
The other night Senator. Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe, called and asked me to suggest a school for some Federal Government intervention by way of a classroom block! I was then in the midst of many of my supporters, so I naturally threw the challenge open to everyone present; that’s my usual style. Of course everyone wanted it in his community or some community for some reason. I insisted that the community has to be one without such a facility. I could easily have taken it to my community school too, but I thought otherwise. The temptation was strong but I remembered that just a fortnight or so ago, the Senator had favoured me with solar street lights in my village. It would therefore be selfish to want to take another project to my community… I mean, others are watching us too. Eventually, we settled for Kutiang II community and I forwarded the name to the Senator. I also added that I will personally visit the community to verify that they are that deprived and have no government school building.
By 6:40 am next morning, I arrived Kutiang II. What I saw shocked me. The state of disrepair of the community is haunting. The road to the community is merely passable and though the culverts are done by community efforts, they are substandard. The swamp through which one drives into the community can easily trap any vehicle, just like the residential houses are a study in the adaptation of man to his environment.
We parked our vehicle at some point and walked about 500m before arriving at the school. Yes, there is a school: three ‘strong’ mud huts at various stages of collapse and disrepair. My shock though was that almost the entire community had turned out to welcome my team and I. On my way there I remembered that my close associate of many years, Mr. Joe Wayas Akor, a lecturer in Unical is from the community and I put a call across to him because I thought he will be offended if he hears that I visited his community without as much as a mention to him. I was lucky he picked his call and I confirmed from him again that there is no standard classroom block in his community primary school. He went on to call the PDP Assistant Secretary of the ward who happens to come from the community to alert him that I was on my way to the community. Needless to add that the village town crier did his job and here I was in the midst of a gathered crowd of enthusiastic men, women, youths and children before 7am in the morning! Imagine the passion.
Well I saw the school. And I present here pictures of what I saw. The only semblance of government presence is the UBEC furniture in one of the blocks.
Gentlemen, this community is in Obudu and there is a lesson. It tells me that nothing suggests that when you have a governor from your place all your problems will be solved.
