Nigeria's senate leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba and his three term stewardshi​p

By Kanjal Godshield

The popular aphorism that says “a prophet is not honored in his home could be regarded as untrue. For the people of Cross River State, it is a great privilege to have senate leader come from the state due simply to the fact that the office is quite prestigious. To the people of Central zone of the state, Senate leader’s position is like that of the president of a country. Senator Victor Ndoma Egba is honored both in his home and globally. By rating, he is the only top ranked senator in the South-South region of the country.

Besides, for the constituents of the Central Senatorial Districts of the state, they may have no regrets for casting their votes for Ndoma Egba to represent them in the National Assembly as Senator.

Born on March 8, 1956 and first elected to the Senate in 2003 into the upper house of the National Assembly as law maker, he was adjudged by his constituents to have represented well just as he was reelected in 2007 for a further four-year term.

Perhaps, Ndoma-Egba was again reelected as Senator for Cross River Central on 26 April 2011 on the PDP platform, winning 143,537 votes, while the runner up was Patrick Iwara of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), who gained 47,656 votes.^[

Egba, who has served in various ad-hoc Senate Committees, he was Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Affairs in the 5^th Senate and Deputy Senate leader in the 6^th Senate and currently Senate leader. He chaired the Senate ad-hoc committee on the Petroleum Development Trust Fund.

He is also a member of senate committees on Upstream Petroleum Resources, Human Rights and Legal Matters, and Information and Media, and deputy chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Nigerian Senate

Egba, who with his huge pedigree as a trained lawyer also doubles as Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).

As a law maker, Ndoma Egba had performed his primary duty extremely well, even as he has sponsored the highest number of bills with 27 bills to his credit. Some of the ‘landmark’ bills sponsored by Ndoma Egba include court of appeal amendment Bill, prisons repeal and re-enactment Act, Freedom of Information Bill which is now an act of the National Assembly among others.

Besides, he has used his respected office to attract a reasonable number of developmental projects to his senatorial district since he joined the senate in 2003. Some of such projects include: the Africa Development Bank sponsored-Enugu-Abakaliki-Ikom TransAfrica Highway corridor, the World Bank intervention on the Ikom-Ogoja Road, the Specialist Hospital in Ikom, the Calabar-Oban-NsanAjassor Road and the catalogue of MDGs projects.

Ndome-Egba had during the electioneering period promised to institute several schemes to alleviate the sufferings of his people. And on assumption of office as the Senator representing the central Senatorial District, introduced several schemes including special scheme for students in Law School; free computer training programme; micro-finance and scheme for the students pursuing theological studies among others.

But the Ndoma-Egba Scholarship scheme and his computer literacy programme seem to have attracted many accolades from his constituents. Ndoma Egba had within his three-term in the upper house of the National Assembly influenced several federal appointments for the people of Cross River State.

Perhaps, keeping to his campaign promises, Egba during the presentation of one of the scholarship awards to 41 beneficiaries at channels View hotels, Calabar, said that the scholarship scheme is one of his several schemes aimed at empowering the people of his constituency and other indigent Cross Riverians.

He said ``this is just undergraduate and post graduates students in tertiary institutions; and if you are asking how much has been spent on it so far, it is about N41 million,” adding, “the scheme is not political, adding that he started it way back in 1983 on a smaller scale until 2003 when it was enlarged.”

The Senate Leader said the aim of the scholarship scheme is to raise skilled manpower from his zone that would compete favourably in the labour market and mandated the board to track the products of the scheme after their National Youth Service to see how they are fairing.

``Seeing them through school is one thing, but making sure that they settle down after school is another thing. Usually they don’t get back but I will urge them to try and get back because I will rather not see it as part of my constituency project, ‘’ he maintained.

Some of the beneficiaries, who expressed gratitude to the senator for the gesture, appealed to other politicians to emulate his exemplary leadership as that is one of the ways to assist those who cannot afford to go to school especially at this trying period.

One of them, Isaac Atagba, a 300 level Bio-chemistry student of the University of Calabar, described the award as the greatest thing that has happened to him.

One of the water projects, facilitated by Senator Ndoma-Egba worth 99 million naira which has an intake point and an over head tank with 22,000 storage capacity and pipes laid across the community to reticulate supply points to various households.

Speaking at the Mkpani water project site, Senator Ndoma Egba said “I am passionate about providing portable water to my people because clean water helps in improving the health of the people.

I have facilitated projects in education, health, environment but I am passionate about water because it is proven that good drinking water helps keep the health of the people in good state. This water project is replicated in five places in this community and pipes will be laid round the community to ensure the water gets to the door steps of every person.” He said

To contribute to tertiary institutions he attended in the country, the law maker re-visited alma-mater including University of Lagos and the University of Calabar, he attracted the construction of three storey edifices to serve as Law Faculties for the two schools.

Speaking on the projects, Senator Ndoma Egba said outside the Trans Africa highway, the Ajassor- Okoroba- road projects, he has in the past twelve years attracted over seven billion naira projects to the state.

‘These projects will touch the lives of the people whether they are farmers, fishermen, civil servants or businessmen and in spite of all these, I will be fulfilled when the dream of attracting a tertiary institution to the Central Senatorial District is accomplished”,

Egba, however disclosed that some projects were state constituency projects facilitated by him, adding that his personal projects were scholarship programme with over 50 beneficiaries, free computer training which has trained over 150 students across the state, provision of funds for SMB, donation of church auditorium, among others.

Beneficiaries were not left out in their appreciation, one of them, Mr James Odey in Obubra said, “our towering leader, the Ogada community in Obura believe that you have justified the confidence reposed in you when we entered into the social with you some years back.” He said

He thanked the senate leader for fulfilling the promises and assuring him of more support from the constituency.

Also basking in the euphoria, Agbor Gabriel 35, from Ikom, said with the projects executed by the senate leader the constituents have no course to regret for voting him into power, adding that their standard of living would improve in a short while.

Kanjal Godshield is a final year student of CRUTECH and wrote in from Calabar