Ojo Maduekwe writes that though a young state, Bayelsa has distinctive features that are being harnessed to make it a tourist destination and emerging market in Nigeria
It's 30 minutes after 10 in the night and I'm standing in front of the Bolaebi hotel gate. Since getting into Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa, I and other journalists haven't had time to take in the view of the city.
Coming from Lagos where the nightlife is a constant part of the vibrant city life, I come out believing to regain what was lost in between our arrival and attending the state's 17th anniversary lecture in the evening.
Except for the long stretch of Melford Okilo Road, also known as Mbiama-Yenagoa Expressway that led to the Bayelsa State government house, which remained boisterously busy with vehicular movement, not a single shop on both sides of the road was opened.
The rays from the streetlights stationed in the middle of the road and car lights, cast shadows on a few people that still walked the way. "It's Monday," Peter Alagoa said in defence of why the road was empty at that hour of the day.
Alagoa works in the hotel as a laundryman. The hotel laundry also services the neighbourhood. He had come outside to hand over a customer's belongings to the delivery man when he met me taking in the atmosphere. I had enquired from him why all the shops were under locks and keys.
Bayelsa is not this usually deserted of people. Earlier, on arrival, we were greeted by a scenario that translated to Yenagoa being a busy capital. There was a long queue at all the banks' ATM centres. The users looked used to it. A regular fixture of the city, I was to be told.
I wondered why the road was not littered with ATM machines. In Lagos, back in the days, when banks still charged one hundred naira per withdrawal it was fashionable to find ATM machines in very ridiculous places. Maybe if banks were still allowed to charge for withdrawal, they would have since seen the city's dire need of having ATM machines stationed across the landscape of the capital.
On a positive side, the cluster of people at all the banks did inspire an internal discussion - the attraction of residing in Yenagoa. The landscape on its own took the semblance of an emerging market. Made up of land and waters, one could see that construction of roads and drainage were on-going. A Julius Berger construction yard stationed at the junction of Isaac Boro Expressway (one of many yards belonging to different construction companies in parts of the capital), indicated that the state is a huge construction site.
During the anniversary public lecture held at the banquet hall of the state government house, the key speaker, a Peoples Democratic Party chieftain and former Minister of Transportation, Chief Ebenezer Babatope had told a personal story to buttress the point of how Bayelsa was gradually turning into a centre of attraction.
Babatope while delivering his lecture titled, 'Nigeria - the Challenges of Our Times', said he had asked two relatives who had abandoned Lagos and taken residence in Bayelsa on the reason for their relocation. According to him, both gave a similar response of Bayelsa being good for business.
A history of the creation of Bayelsa exposes the irony of the widely held view of the late General Sani Abacha as an unpopular leader. While many Nigerians may rain words of abuse on the dictator for bringing untold hardship on Nigerians, Bayelsans have no choice but to reserve some form of appreciation for him each time they celebrate the state's anniversary.
After years of agitations by the Ijaws who alleged marginalisation regarding the spread of developmental projects in the old Rivers State, Bayelsa was created out of the old Rivers state. What previous military administrations failed to do, late Sani Abacha did on October 1, 1996. Today, Bayelsa shares birth date with Nigeria and, like the country has had its own fair share of mixed fortunes.
One of the smallest, if not the smallest of all the states in Nigeria, in terms of land mass and population, Bayelsa is big in natural resources, contributing largely to the wealth of the nation. Record has it that the state has one of the largest crude oil and natural gas deposits in the country.
This means the monthly federal allocation accruable to it ranks among the highest. Naturally, one would expect Bayelsa to be the best developed in the country. Among other challenges that subsequent administrations have had to battle with, the pace of development was also due to how past governors, both military and civilians may have handled its resources.
Chief Press Secretary to the state government, Daniel Iworiso-Markson, writing in 'Bayelsa Today', a quarterly magazine of the state wrote, "At 17, Bayelsa State is still relatively young and the journey of statehood arguably tough and mixed, but there is great hope especially now as we can see a bold identity of creative leadership and enterprise at work which has the sole objective of bringing back the once lost glory."
Aside being relatively young, Bayelsa, among other challenges, before governor Dickson took over the reins of affairs in the state, was lacking in proper developmental roadmap. Up until the current administration, the level of development achieved has been greatly influenced by the ecology and topography of the state. Bayelsa is substantially a riverine state.
So, previous administrations had battled with the dire challenge of construction on tough, almost forbidding terrain. The state is described as floating "On a marshy environment", which is a huge challenge for any construction to take place. The cost of constructing a kilometre of road in Bayelsa is said to often time be "more than five times the cost of doing so elsewhere in the country."
What little other administrations were able to achieve, governor Dickson, the people say, has more than doubled them. In a space of a year and six months, Dickson has achieved so much. The governor is being praised for promoting good governance. Through the Bayelsa Income and Transparency Bill 2012, accountability is being ensured by the disclosure in a publication of the revenue accruing to the state and the local governments and how they are spent.
An all-inclusive government, town hall meetings are regularly held in the state, where issues are addressed. One of such issue is in the area of education to which the government set up a one billion naira fund for scholarship. According to official data, the fund has already started paying the way of "hundreds of the state's indigenes in universities and top institutions of higher learning around the world."
Notable in the state is a high level of security. Before the granting of amnesty by the federal government to former militants, the state used to be in the press for bad reasons. Once characterised by insecurity, Bayelsa now radiates peace; the kind of security that encourages external investors to come and set up businesses; that kind that has turned Lagosians into Bayelsans.
Refusing to solely rely on oil, the state has continued to invest in tourism. Endowed with a wide variety of customs, traditions, festivals, arts, crafts, artifacts, museums, monuments and more, the state government has through the relevant state agencies initiated and adopted strategies to properly harness and develop them into tourist attractions.
The federal government is doing well to boost the state government's efforts. According to official report, an oil museum has been proposed by the federal government for Oloibiri, the community where oil was first discovered in commercial quantity in Nigeria in 1956. It is said that when established, the museum will serve as a centre of excellence in petroleum history, entertainment and learning.
Bayelsa may not yet be a state befitting of a president, but with the rate of development being embarked on by the Dickson administration, it is only a matter of time before change sweeps through the entire oil rich state, making it the envy of other states of the federation, and like its official motto says, 'The Glory of all Lands'. The odds definitely are in favour of Bayelsa.
Curled From Allafrica.com
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