Meet Barr. Azibaola Robert, The Man Who Turned Goodluck Jonathan A Prodigal Son In His Hometown

Azibaola Roberts, GEJ's buddy

Barr. Azibaola Robert is one of President Goodluck Jonathan’s closest friends. He is an Ijaw man from same Ogbia local government council with the outgoing president. The man is the CEO of Kakaatar Engineering Limited, a company formerly known as Mangrovetech Engineering Limited which controls over 80 per cent of the contracts in the Ogbia council area that have been abandoned.

The Ogbia people are said to have compiled all the abandoned projects in a petition they are giving to the EFCC, since Jonathan has refused to call his friend to order. Some of the major awarded jobs Roberts’ Kakaatar have filed to execute include:

*Shore erosion control works at Akipilai, Ayakoro and Otuoke towns awarded by the Ministry of Transport at a cost of N7,503,344,599.00.

*Construction of 2000 rooms hostel at Federal University, Otuoke awarded by NDDC at a cost N4Billion.

* Otuoke/Ikima Internal road network awarded by NDDC at a cost of N4Billion.
* Opume/Okoroba 9.5 Km Road also awarded by NDDC at the cost of N10Billion.

* Bayelsa State Cargo Airport (Sandfilling) 4 Million Cubic of Sand at N10Billion.

Some others abandoned projects outside Ogbia and Bayelsa handled by Kakaatar are

*NIMASA awarded shipbuilding/dockyard construction (civil and infrastructure), Delta State at the cost of N18,457,283,591.91.

*FCTA awarded provision of engineering infrastructure, Kyami District, Abuja at the cost of N60,887,492,656.65.

*FCT awarded Karshi-Ara road in FCT at a cost of N4,097,185,656.30.

*Federal Ministry of Works awarded 14km Mbaise-Ngwa road in Imo state at the cost of N2.94Billion.

Already, the people of Ogbia have described Jonathan as a prodigal, who has no balls to call his contractor friends to order and has allowed the community dotted with many uncompleted projects. Angry that they have nothing to show for Jonathan’s reign as Nigeria’s president, they have demanded an apology from him for the abandoned and uncompleted projects in the area. The demand came via a resolution at a meeting Monday by some Ogbia communities who threw their weight behind Comrade Oniekpar Ikuli, the Ijaw Youth Council Director of Mobilisation.

The communities said they are supporting Ikuli to sue Robert to redeem payment for services rendered for Jonathan’s campaign. The case will be heard at an FCT High Court on the 28th of May, 2015.

The Ogbia people said for the six years they were privileged to have produced the President, the area has little or nothing to show for it, as most of the jobs approved were awarded to companies owned by Jonathan’s friends. They said the contractors have refused to execute the jobs and Jonathan has equally refused to call them to order.

They said this agitation became necessary as the government of their son winds up and their only hope now is the belief that the fear of General Buhari will be the only reason these contractors might resume work in the area.