Opinion: Delta @34: Between the Drums of Celebration and the Cries of the Creeks_By William Z. Bozimo.

There are states, and there are stories but Delta is both. Born on 27 August 1991, like a child with undue agitation and geography, she emerged from the womb of Bendel like a stubborn river insisting on its own course. Today, thirty-four seasons later, the drums beat again. But what do we celebrate, the years or the journey?

Delta is no stranger to paradox. She is the oil well that feeds a nation but often leaves her children thirsty. She is the palm tree standing tall, yet often bent by the winds of politics. She is the cradle of Warri’s pidgin jokes, Asaba’s solemn grace, and the undying songs of the Isoko, Urhobo, Ijaw, Anioma, and Itsekiri people. 

At 34, Delta has worn many garments such as the garment of hope, stitched by the MORE Agenda, with its promises of roads, schools, and clinics. The apparel of struggle, when youths cry for employment while pipelines snake through their backyards. The clothing of resilience, when women in markets stretch their naira to feed families, while men in creeks demand their share of the oil pie.

In her laughter and lament sit side by side, like neighbours who cannot move away. But what is the true measure of a state? Is it the billions declared in GDP? Or the mother who still prays by a smoky lantern for her child’s future? Could it also be the grand bridges that link towns, or the unpaved roads where sandals collect dust? 

Perhaps it is both: the statistics that please the elites, and the true stories that burden the poor. Yet, we cannot deny this truth that Delta State endures. She survives the storms of politics, the waves of insecurity, the drought of dishonest leadership, and still finds a way to dance at the New Yam Festival, like a river that refuses to dry. 

Like the River Niger, she bends, she floods, she recedes, but she never dries. Delta at 34 must ask herself a question: “Will I be remembered as the goose that laid the golden egg for others, or the eagle that finally spread her wings for her own?” Let this year's anniversary not be mere speeches in air-conditioned halls alone. 

Let it be a covenant that the oil wealth will not just polish Abuja’s marble floors, but also tar the Delta’s forgotten roads. Let it also be that the laughter of Warri boys will not only be masked by unemployment alone, but also by countless celebrated options. Let that Anioma farmer, Ijaw fisherman, Urhobo trader, Itsekiri teacher, and Isoko nurse, all feel the state as their homeland and not as a stranger. 

Delta @34. A river, restless, sometimes polluted, often betrayed, but still flowing. And as long as the river flows, the dream of her people must remain alive. God bless Delta State, Amen.

William Z. Bozimo

Veteran Journalist | Columnist | National Memory Keeper