By Stephen Adeleye.
Gov. Yahaya Bello of Kogi on Saturday began the inauguration of World Bank Community and Social Development Project (CSDP) micro facilities worth N500 million across the three senatorial districts of the State.
The governor kick-started the projects’ commissioning with a completed cottage hospital and two motorised boreholes at Anyava and Agassa Uvette communities in Okene Local Government Area of Kogi.
The governor also performed a foundation laying ceremony of a Skills Acquisition centre at Okene Community Secondary School (OCSS) in Anyava.
Represented by Director General, Government House Administration, Alhaji Shaibu Oricha, Bello applauded the partnership between the world bank and the State Government worth N500 million to providing basic social amenities to poor rural communities across the state.
”We started with commissioning of the Clinic, you cannot explain the importance of health because health is wealth, and you need to provide health facility for human being to exist, so that we can have a healthy environment.
”The second is water; these are two important social and basic amenities that are key to human existence.
”We are also doing ground breaking of a Skills Acquisition Centre as way of empowering the people of this area.
”If you are not healthy you cannot acquire skills, you cannot also exist without water, which we have just done.
”Any reasonable government should look into these key areas after providing security, the next thing to provide is social amenities; water and health,” he said.
He advised the communities to protect, maintain and sustain those facilities for their own benefits, while commending the CSDA for a jobs well done in mainstreaming the partnership inline with the New Direction Blueprint.
”We introduced these projects to touch the lives of the poor people of the rural communities which cut across the three senatorial districts of Kogi State,” the governor said.
Earlier, the General Manager of CSDA, Mallam Dauda Momoh, said the agency was saddled with the responsibility to bringing the basic social amenities closer to the poor people in the rural communities.
”The project is a World Bank Assisted Project, but not all States that are benefitting from it. Kogi is one of the pioneering States because our governor showed interest in it.
”So far, this year alone, we have spent over N500 million in communities with over 100 micro projects completed across seven focal LGAs and ready for commissioning,” he said.
He mentioned the 2019 benefiting focal LGAs to include: Okene, Okehi, Ajaokuta, Olamaboro, Ibaji, Ijumu and Kogi/Kotonkarfe, while Yagba west, Kabba/Bunu, Adavi and Dekina had been added for 2020.
He noted that the CSDA had at least two micro projects in every community with the amount not exceeding N10 million, saying the community contributed 10 per cent while the Agency paid the remaining 90 per cent of the project total cost.
According to him, the essence of the 10 per cent from community was just for them to show commitment and taking ownership of those projects, because they belong to the community and they have to maintain it.
”The project is all about the initiation of the community by first writing to CSDA to come and assist them in their area of need. The micro projects in Anyava and Agassa Uvette communities cost about N9.72 million
”So any project you see on ground is initiated by the communities because that is their need; it is a community-driven development after following the due process,” Momoh said.
In his goodwill message, Alhaji Aliyu Sadiq, the Odogidi of Ehebe, Okene, who spoke on behalf of the communities, commended the world bank and the State government for the partnership, which would have great impacts in the lives of their people.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the area of CSDA interventions in rural communities include: education, health, water, electricity, socioeconomic development and rural roads to create access to markets.
