Group Calls For Stronger Official Backing For NDDC

Akanimo Sampson

Bureau Chief, Port Harcourt

Group Calls For Stronger Official Backing For NDDC

*As Elders Push For Non-violent Approach

THE Ibom Collectives, a civil society group in Akwa Ibom State, has called for a legislative review of the Act establishing the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), with a view to granting it greater autonomy from official interferences from Abuja.

To this end, the group is advocating for a discentralisation of the interventionist agency along homogenous lines. Under the zonal structure being advocated, Abia and Imo states could be a separate zone or be merged with Akwa Ibom and Cross River states as one zone. Edo, Delta, and Ondo states would form a zone, while Bayelsa and Rivers states will constitute another zone.

Co-ordinator of the group, Maurice Edoho-Eket, told our correspondent in an interview yesterday in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, that the idea behind the zonal structure is to allow each zone address their perculiar needs, and also make the development agency more closer to the people it is expected to serve.

''A well defined zonal arrangement for the NDDC will not allow government to withhold funds meant for the commission unnecessarily, and also allay the fears in some circles that the agency was meant for the Ijaw people'', Edoho-Eket said.

The group that was in Port Harcourt for a consultative meeting on the need to give the Niger Delta Minister, Chief Ufot Ekaette, a chance, however, claimed that the current hostile attitude of some Ijaw leaders and groups, was not helping the oil and gas region to build regional unity.

''The Ibom Collectives is of the view that the time has come for the peoples and leaders of the Niger Delta to change their approach. To this end, we are in support of the move of some concerned elders for a new method in our struggle for socio-economic and environmental justice'', the group said.
Already, some elders of the oil region are pushing for the use of new strategies in the struggle to get the authorities in Abuja and the transnational oil corporations to develop the region.

They used the opportunity offered by the 50th Birthday thanksgiving service in honour of the Acting Executive Director, Finance and Administration of the NDDC, Elder Power Aginighan, to canvass for a change in tactics.

At the service which took place at the Apostolic Church Temple located off Abuloma Road in Port Harcourt , a former President of the Traditional Rulers of Oil Mineral Producing Communities, Pere Charles Ayemi-Botu, told our correspondent that the region has made a strong statement to the world that could not be ignored.

He urged youths and other stakeholders in the struggle to explore new methods in dealing with the problem of the region.

Ayeni-Botu, who is the Pere of Seimbiri Kingdom in Delta State , insisted that the Niger Delta deserved a fairer treatment and called on the Federal Government and multinationals to urgently address the challenges of the area.

He, however, advised youths in the region to lay down their arms but insisted that justice must be seen to have been done to the people.

Also speaking, a former top security chief, Chief Albert Horsfall said violence was useful to the struggle and asked that a new strategy should be adopted to advance the struggle.

“When you talk of Power Aginighan, he symbolises the Niger Delta. If you go to him with some problems, he will always come up with the solution. He is always a giver.

“Today, he is fifty and has justified your existence. This is just the beginning. He has have faced so many challenges but you have always come out with resilience. That is why you are the pillar of the NDDC.

“When the Itshekiris and the Ijaws were fighting, he was the peace-broker and was accepted by the two parties. Imagine that he is an Ijaw man but the Itshekiris trusted him enough to allow him settle the crisis. This is as a result of the confidence people have on him.

“We don’t have to kill each other; we don’t have to kill ourselves. God has already designed what everyone will be before he or she comes into the world.

“To the Niger Delta youths, who are fighting for very obvious reasons; if they should learn from the life of PZ, they will realize that the things they are fighting for could be achieved them with sound argument.

“When I was deputy president of the Union of the Niger Delta, our advocacy was so strong that the whole of the country became so scared. We didn’t carry any gun but we said things that really hurt people.

“What we needed to do, even now is to know how far we need to go in carrying guns and when we need to stop. I have said to the genuine youths of the Niger Delta that they have made their points. The time has now come for you to change strategy.

“Follow the path of political dialogue and make it so strong, so determined that we will achieve our collective goal. There is nothing more to prove. When the struggle started, many didn’t know where the Niger Delta was but today people from all parts of the world have come to know this region.”

Aginighan had called on leaders in the region to be transparent and accountable to the people on whose mandate they exercised power.

He said, “Those at the helm of affairs in the region should make judicious use of the resources at their disposal to the overall interest of the people. It is then that we can have the moral right to question the use of our resources at the centre.

“Democracy should have its way through the conduct of free and fair election where our people have a say about who rules them. Governance in the Niger Delta must be by the wishes of the people.

“If Ghana can produce this example of democracy, then we can. I appeal to our youths to understand that there is no other way to succeed than through hard work.

“Without firing a gun, we can deliver the Niger Delta from slavery. Enough is enough of violence, of wasting of lives and criminality. We can resolve the crisis in the region amicably.

The ceremony was attended by prominent politicians, opinion leaders and elders of the region including four time minister, Alabo Tonye Graham Douglas, the Chairman of the of the board of the NDDC, Chief Dan Abia, the Managing Director of the commission, Mr. Timi Alaibe, commissioners from Bayelsa and Delta States and youth leaders, among others.

ENDS

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