The Leader of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), and Chairman, Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum, Pa Edwin Clark, has disagreed with President Muhammadu Buhari’s submission that his administration has brought peace to the Niger Delta.
The Elder Statesman also cautioned the President against scrapping the Predidential Amnesty Programme.
Pa Clark said scrapping the Amnesty Programme will result in unpleasant implications in the region, and indeed the country stressing that the Niger Delta is sitting on a keg of gunpowder.
Pa Clark, whose comments came in an open letter he wrote to the President on Thursday, recalled that recent promises made by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo and the Governor of Delta State during a visit to the region to address rising complaints about marginalization, have been reneged on.
“Recently, both the Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbanjo, the Governor of Delta State, represented by his Deputy, Barr. Kingsley Otuaro who also hails from one of the oil producing host communities, the Minister of State, Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylva, made statements about plans for intervention in reply to concerns of our youths about marginalisation while recently protesting against the neglect and oil pollution in their area, where there is no development, particularly drinking water, whereas they sit on top of the water. Fishes are being killed as a result of the pollution.
“Mr. President, may I make it very clear to you that the area is sitting on a keg of gunpowder, and any attempt to scrap the amnesty programme may produce unpleasant consequences to all”, the former Federal Minister of Information, said.
He said the people of the Niger Delta were very mindful of the developments the Buhari administration is carrying out in other areas of the country with monies derived from oil exploration in their area.
“Mr. President, may I make it very clear to you that the area is sitting on a keg of gunpowder, and any attempt to scrap the amnesty programme may produce unpleasant consequences to all.”
He lamented that the situation in the country has made it rather clear that the people of the Niger Delta have been unfairly and shabbily treated.
“Since the other issues raised are already listed above, I need not take them one by one. But they are all self-evident that the people of the Niger Delta region are being treated very badly and shabbily. Our people are very conscious of the developments that your government is carrying out in other areas of the country with monies derived from oil exploration in their area.
“We repeat, our agitation against the use of money looted from our area by the late Gen. Sani Abacha, which was recovered from the United States of America, exclusively for the construction of the so-called mega projects by the Federal Government, and the illegal confiscation of 2.4 million pounds from the British government as loot recovered from the former Governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori, under the flimsy excuse by the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, that it was the Federal Government, which as a nation, negotiated with the British government, and that it was an agreement between the two governments that the money should be used for federal projects. This is not true”, Pa Clark said.
He noted that whilst money generated from the Niger Delta was being diverted to fund projects in other regions of the country, federal roads in the Niger Delta region have mostly collapsed and applying these funds to rehabilitate these collapsed roads, would have gone a long way to solve some of the problems in the region.
Pa Clark also drew President Buhari’ s attention to the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) noting that leaders of the Niger Delta had long drawn attention to the issues, which it purportedly seeks to address.
“Let me raise another issue, which is still very current, and that is the question of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). Before the Niger Delta crisis in the early 2000, we had warned the government to stop the outright neglect of the environment and the damage it is causing our eco-system with the reckless operational activities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), and the oil companies. These warnings were not heeded to, until crisis erupted and all manners of agitations surfaced”, Clark said.
