Okechukwu Chinonso, Finally Alatia Will Be Electrified ➖ Community Based Support Remains The Key

MAZI EJIMOFOR OPARA

The cliche “Alatia has not had light since the beginning of the world” has become synonymous with the name Okechukwu Chinonso on this platform and many others. His dogged advocacy for the electrification of Alatia community has remained unwavering. Many thought he was just one social media attention seeker, who should blame government instead of calling for communal solution to the problem of his fatherland. Nonso stuck to his gun. Today, there is a success story evolving from his years of “noisemaking” and attention seeking. 

I grew up in an Ngor Okpala where there was robust community effort towards solving or local problems. I saw my Dad and his only brother donate to the purchase of electric poles, just like every grown adult of their time,  in my community, towards the electrification of my village. I grew up in an Ngor Okpala where the Town Unions organized fund raising events just to attend to one communal problem or the other. That same Ngor Okpala would have broken the thick screen of underdevelopment if this approach was sustained. I maintain, government cannot do it all and alone.

The same way an illustrious son of Nguru Umuaro (names withheld), in the 90s contributed immensely to the electrification of the Town, and other unsung heroes of our various communities who championed herculean courses that are today benifitting all and sundry; Pharmacist Elike Ekenna has entered this heroes hall of fame when, on the 11th day of May, 2018,  he presented a 300kva transformer and one feeder pillar to his community – Alatia. This underscores the primacy of our widow’s mite in the calculus of our complex problems.

Let’s learn to make the right noise for our people. For Chinonso, no one must rest until Alatia is electrified. To so many of us, it is time to put our sons and daughters with verifiable antecedents and legitimate livelihoods in National and State leadership positions. What is your advocacy and how do you intend actualizing it? It is not enough to stand by on this forum and post pictures of inanities, ask irrelevant questions, attack every post and catch some “fun”  when there is a widening gap of infrastructural deficit in our localities that government alone may not fill.

From Mbaishi to Obike, Okwe to Onyeaghalanwanneya and Igba. There is a renewed call to reactivate our moribund communal spirit. That spirit where _Guymen_ will be treated like what they are and decent men will take the centre stage. Where the souls of our dying schools will be restored by her Alumni without waiting for the bureaucracies of government. This is time to emulate the doggedness of Okechukwu Chinonso, the altruism of Ndi Alatia and selflessness of Pharm. Elike Ekenna.

Congratulations to Alatia. More is still to come.

*#NgorOkpalaDeservesBetter*