The GbaramatuVoice was established in 2015 as a monthly tabloid published by the Gbaramatu Publishing Company Limited. It hit the newsstand first on August 2015. The newspaper’s sole objective is to bring to public glare what the management saw at the cradle of its formation as information gap and asymmetrical reportage of the activities and people of the Niger Delta.
BY EKANPOU ENEWARIDIDEKE In the beginning, was the world and the world was God and in the world was Otuaro’s morning. Among many mornings in the world was the one ‘achebeically’ designated as Morning Yet on Creation Day. That ‘achebeically’ designated morning is not Otuaro’s morning. Otuaro’s morning is the morning on a day after
By Ekanpou Enewaridideke Stories in their variegated colours about both biotic and abiotic factors have been told by the village boy – stories sometimes categorised as either phenomenally bad or good depending on the interpretational wavelength from which the stories are read and analysed. Interpretatively favoured or disfavoured, these stories fly everywhere on variegated wings
Tompolo and the City of Freedom By Ekanpou Enewaridideke Many centuries have lived comfortably and gone by. For centuries there lived the city of Freedom in the city of Freedom. The city of Freedom is yet to be denied the right of habitation in the city of Freedom. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Reading one Mallam Kabiru Yusuf’s diatribe against the Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri, on the current spillage in Nembe community (also in Bayelsa State) leaves you with a feeling of shock, nausea, outright revulsion or all of these. Since November 5, 2021 when it was first reported, hydrocarbon resources of gas and crude oil
Nembe, an otherwise quiet, beautiful kingdom in Bayelsa State, populated by a peaceful, enterprising people, has been in the news these past weeks, for the wrong reason. Dozens of already neglected communities and the people are soaked in crude oil—the same oil that has made such communities in Europe and America economic hotspots and development
Prof Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha One of the consequences of state capture is the predilection of a few power holders in the hierarchy to govern, or rule the polity with impunity, by subverting the very process or mechanism and instruments which placed them in office ab initio, by appropriating largesse to their constituencies in further consolidation
By Festus Adedayo At No 9, Rumuibekwe Road in Port Harcourt on November 10, 1995, the devil sat in a corner, having a saturnalia. No one could see him. He wore dark goggles, donning the uniform of a five-star Army General, wrapped up in a huge celebratory mood. His arch-enemy, Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa and eight
The PIB Bill just assented to as an Act of Parliament by President Muhammadu Buhari, is a mere ruse, a monstrosity, an artifice and device, carefully crafted, incubated and delivered, to actually do irretrievable violence to Nigeria’s progress and juris corpus. The Act constitutes a direct assault on age-long cherished principles of federalism and the
A few years ago I had the cherished opportunity to have a one-on-one discussion with a newly appointed Director General of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) who complained bitterly that the organisation didn’t have money to fund its operations. As if the word was already hanging in my mouth I told him to count the
By Asiayei Enaibo Kingdoms exist on the premises of the tradition of the founding fathers, their sacred laws, principles, norms, and ethics sustain their strength, powers beyond conquest. Ogulagha kingdom, one sacred Ijaw kingdom that have existed before the coming of the colonial masters in history, briefly called “Ogula” recorded in the national archives. This
By Jerome Mario-Utomi In a piece entitled; Banters in Lagos, Poverty and Disease in the Niger Delta, posted about four years ago, precisely in February 2018. Aside from spreading out the needs, interests, aspirations and even their problems were critically reviewed against solution plans and implementation, it among other concerns posited the following comparative scrutiny/conclusions; namely,
(IN MEMORIAM OF A DEAD POET) BY EKANPOU ENEWARIDIDEKE A great poet is dead! Seiyei the famous poet, the unbeatable master of imagistic cliche is dead! A poet dies in all who claims mastership without awakening sounds from his readers Alas, to the memory of this acclaimed master poet, this dead master poet, I sail
By Uwa John When I first read the catching axiom of “Kite” and “Eagle”in Things Fall Apart, a masterpiece of one of the greatest storytellers in history, Chinua Achebe, I didn’t quite give the proverb any metaphorical interpretation beyond the context of the novel until reactions started trailing the recent call for the renaming of
Listening to the 61st Independence Day Speech of President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, his sixth as president, I concluded that his government is rated for those 18 and above. The content of the addresses and statements by his government which takes all known credits and blames others for its failures while also making Trumpian claims,
The proximity of the presidential candidate of the main opposition party in Nigeria, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to emerge from the Southern part of the country could be considered to have been maximised with the recent decision of the party on zoning. It could be recalled that some leaders and members of the main opposition party
Everywhere, one of the footprints of wars and conflicts is social and economic dislocation – loss of lives and valuable economic and cultural assets. Communal conflicts, including the much talked about WARRI ‘96, which was generally a crisis between Ijaw, Itsekiri, and partly Urhobo, are not an exception. The ashes of this ethnic conflict are
By Etibe Uko No doubt, some folks are psychic, very perceptive. Some are gifted with the ability to see what mere mortals cannot see, they tread in realms where no mortal dares. It seems there are mentally gifted folks who have seen the NDDC Forensic Audit Report without the Report being in public space. Before the NDDC
By Jerome-Mario Utomi It is a common knowledge that recently, the Ijaw leaders, youths and women predominantly residents in six councils of Delta State, with these councils domiciled within the Delta South Senatorial zone, insisted that their ethnic nationality must produce the next governor in 2023, as they have made huge sacrifices, contributing to the
By Ekanpou Enewaridideke I have been somewhere held captive by a soothing sleep but just awakened by heavy raindrops upon my roof ‘dribbling and falling like orange or mango fruits showered forth in the wind…’ It rained like that ‘JP-CLARKED’ ‘Night Rain’ forcing mother to ‘deploy’ ‘wooden bowls’ and ‘earthenware’ about the ‘roomlet’ and ‘floor’
He came with a vision to achieve his mission of peace as the Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP). His early days passed across the loud message that Col. Dixon Dikio was not prepared to waste his time on frivolities and needless distractions. He was out to provide the needed leadership to steer
By Kaniye Amakiri After nearly two years of waiting by eager Niger Deltans, the much-trumpeted forensic audit report of NDDC was last week submitted by Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Akpabio to President Buhari. Kaniye Amakiri urge the Federal Government to release the forensic audit report to the Nigerian public, commence the prosecution of
By Mayowa Tijani On November 27, 2013, a group of uniformed men destroyed 240,000 bottles of beer in Kano state, northwestern Nigeria. These uniformed men are called officers of the Hisbah Police. On the same day, these same men destroyed 8,000 litres of Burukutu, a local alcoholic brew popular in the country. They said they
“We must therefore inspire and teach our youths how to fish by creating platforms and structures for the youths to commercialise their talents and potentials and become economically strong and sustainable in the face of covid-19-induced economic challenges ravaging the economies of various countries in the world.” The world does not need university thesis or
By Jerome-Mario Utomi Undoubtedly, we live in a nation where public leadership scorns ideas from citizens and sees it as a form of distraction to public policies. Again, ours is a country where grit, tenacity, perseverance coming from far sighted citizens is considered divisive. The above ill-considerations by the public office holders notwithstanding, there appear
By Nelson Egware Delta State, with the sobriquet as the Big Heart of the nation, became 30 years on August 27, 2021, after its creation by the military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida on August 27, 1991. The government and people of Delta State lined up programmes to celebrate the anniversary and appreciate the grace of
“And so it seems that people who write about happenings in their environment both intended and extended, whose thoughts grip the perception being quantified, do not stumble accidentally into their status, they achieve it through the deep knowledge they have acquired often painfully about their society” The Center for Politics and Strategic Studies, a non-governmental
By Tahir Ibrahim Tahir The rains weren’t going to come this year and I was quite petrified, seeing that the sector with the largest contribution to our GDP has been the non oil sector; with agric leading the fray. The clouds would gather and the thunderstorms would rage on, but then they would just disappear
By Jerome-Mario Utomi Few days ago, precisely on Tuesday August 10, 2021, I listened with real curiosity to Mr. Daniel Alabrah, Chief Press Secretary to Senator Douye Diri, the Executive Governor of Bayelsa State, speaks at the recently held GbaramatuVoice Newspaper 6th anniversary lecture at the Eko Hotels and Suites, Lagos. Among other things, Alabrah,
By Jerome-Mario Utomi Aside from being perceived as backward and degraded, occasioned by crude oil exploration, exploitation and production, Niger Delta region means different things to different people. To some, it is a region where communal right to a clean environment and access to clean water supplies is being violated in the Niger Delta. By
‘Story, story, oh story! come together you who are Ijaws; let us sit down together, talk and plan together’. This is the voice of Bekedomo from Ekeremo town, Okoloba’s wife, the daughter of Famoateiya and Koroyemo. ‘The plans of a poor man do miss their track in the maze of the forest and fall through.’
It was George Washington, a onetime President of the United State of America (USA), who once said that, “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by our nation.”
By Kasim Isa Muhammad Education is the bedrock of development. If the education system in the country can be revised to emphasise the practical aspect of study and particularly entrpreneurship, there is a great tendency that youths will be self-reliant and employers of labour.This is because they must have developed knowledge in technology and had
What proactive steps are we taking to nip this looming danger by the bud? Or are we going to wait for the flood to come in order to continue with our public leadership reactive mentality? In the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) report, 121 Local Government areas (LGAs) in 27 states and the Federal Capital
Can 65 year old Onochie, a die-in-the-wool APC fanatic, pick up the Holy Bible (as a Christian) and swear that if she had been cleared by the Senate as INEC Commissioner, she would have been truly unrestrained, unconstrained, bold, individualist, and liberated from the apron strings of Buhari and the APC? I think not, or,
By Jerome-Mario Utomi The United State Supreme Court is not the highest in our land. Our highest court is the court of public opinion which meets every hour- Seltel (1987) “I have no fear of constitutional amendments properly adopted, but I do fear the rewriting of the Constitution by judges under the guise of interpretation.”
