David Alagoa is an English man in African skin. Even as we speak, he can fit into Peckham, Brixton or West Hampstead, if he were to arrive London today. He knows the system, and the system knows him. He knows that the trains work tirelessly round the clock, underground and overground. He knows that the taps run ceaselessly, and energy supply is constant.
He knows that the sanitation trucks go round every morning, collecting refuse as regularly as the milkman drops a bottle of milk by the door every morning. He also knows that the mail delivery system is as efficient as the tax system. You pay as you receive comfort and service from day to day.
Government, in short, does not provide service on credit. On their part, the people are happy to work hard so that the light does not go out, the taps keep flowing with drinkable water, the police vans crawl through the streets day and night, just so that the jolly good people of London can enjoy the comfort of a good night rest.
David Alagoa believes this can be done in Bayelsa in the twenty-first century. He believes that Bayelsa deserves a government that would take the proverbial dividends of democracy into the living room of every home. It is unacceptable, he said, for mallams to hawk water in carts, and carry jerry-cans up and down the staircases of the Bayelsa State secretariat complex built by the Alamieyeseigha government.
David Alagoa wants to provide the most primary requirements for decent and comfortable living, so that every family in Bayelsa can testify to the goodness of the Lord. He would like to mend broken roads, build new ones, build additional bridges, and make sure everyone has a running tap in their homes. He would ensure that the light remains steady, like an ever present source of inspiration.
David Alagoa was perhaps the most unlikely aspirant to have popped up on the list of new contestants for the office of Governor, Bayelsa State. He didn’t make it that far, but he became Commissioner for Agriculture under the government of Senator Douye Diri, and subsequently became Chairman of Nembe local government area. David is the only son of Emeritus Professor of History, Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa and Mercy Gboribusuote Alagoa, the matronly wife of the professor.
David still misses everything about his mother, and he still means to accomplish a few dreams he shared with her in times past. Many years ago, the vision came crystal clear with a biblical backing to it. David would arise from the wilderness, and be anointed after all the aspirants have been paraded before Prophet Samuel. ‘Our conviction is spiritual’, said David Alagoa. ‘We work with the example of the biblical David’.
Come to that, it would seem as though God has been rehearsing David Alagoa for high office in Bayelsa State. In the not too distant past, he was put in charge of a flock of ideas. His duty was to deploy them in the service of communities covered by the company he worked for, in a strategic reach-out programme designed to ameliorate conditions of living in Ogu and Onne, hosts of Intels Nigeria Limited. David was grateful for the confidence placed in him.
He was already familiar with the challenges facing the local communities in question. As a son of the Niger Delta, he knew what life was like in his own village. And so, he began by taking inventory of what could be done under an elastic budget in the corporate hands of Intels, one of the foremost new generation oil and gas concerns awake to its community relations imperative.
In his capacity as procurement officer and community relations officer of the international company rolled into one, David was a primary witness to the construction of roads, the supply of pipe-borne water, the building of classroom blocks, the provision of training facilities for women, to say nothing of a grand ultra-modern market.
He was in the management team that planned an elaborate skills acquisition programme for youths and, even more importantly, an open offer of free medical care to citizens of Onne and Ogu in Rivers State. It was so for as long as David was at Intels, and he stayed for fifteen eventful years of his life. He resigned only when he lost his beloved mother, and his reason was that he needed to take care of his father at a personal level.
Even today, David Alagoa feels happy when he flips through his photo album and sees young women sitting behind sewing machines provided for them in an open hall, learning a trade that will serve them for life. He sees pictures of young men he had engaged in wielding and fabrication, wearing masks over their faces and learning to work metal into usable purposes.
David still feels a great overflow of empathy when he remembers how he gathered disabled young men and women under a common umbrella, and provided them succour, to say nothing of hopeful words about what they can do with the power of their mind to transcend their conditions, and make meaning of life.
David Alagoa, this easy going diplomat, is like a refined version of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha. Like the former Governor, they share the same initials, if left at DA, and had a converging point in their records of service. In 1999, at the critical turn of the century, when Alamieyeseigha was invited to run for the office of Governor of Bayelsa State, he ceded his office at the International Petroleum Company (IPCO) to David Alagoa.
‘I was Procurement Manager while Alamieyeseigha was Administrative Manager’, David recalls. ‘I took over from him when he went into politics, and I stayed at IPCO for four more years before leaving for Intels Nigeria Limited where I worked for fifteen years virtually in the same capacity’.
David is confident that he can replicate the ideals of good governance in Bayelsa, if given a chance to occupy the exalted seat inside Creek Haven, and administer the commonwealth in the overall interest of the state. David, in fact, was the twentieth aspirant to pick his expression of interest form at Wadata Plaza, Abuja, in times past. At that time, he had every reason to elaborate on his manifesto at length.
‘I would like to see a very urban Yenagoa’, he said in that expansive manner that is typical of him. ‘If you will run a successful government, you also have to work with people. If you keep everybody mobilised, including market women, the youth, keke drivers, not just politicians and the elite, then you are bound to get results.
‘I have often thought of what I can bring to the table. The state is already divided into three senatorial districts. I would like to provide infrastructural services in equal measure to all three districts, with an expressway leading from Yenagoa. Each district will have a senatorial gas turbine, and along the way, all requisite services will be provided, hotels, service centres, hospitals, name it. That opens up the hinterland. From there, factories can branch off.
‘I worked in a managerial office in two multi-national oil companies for the better part of twenty-two years. Within the scope of my work, I met with elders, youths, chiefs and government. It exposed me a lot. I believe I have the capacity to govern Bayelsa in the fullness of time, so help me God. I am well equipped for the assignment, and I look forward to it’, he said.
David Alagoa is marking time at the moment as Chairman, Nembe Local Government Area, with high hopes about what he can accomplish for the Nembe people. He was recently endorsed, installed and chalked as Chief Mangite. He now goes by the full appellation – Chief David Alagoa-Mangite.
