The perceived peace currently being enjoyed in the oil rich Niger Delta region and the attendant hitch-free oil exploration may soon be interrupted as the leadership Pan Niger Delta Forum has warned President Muhammadu Buhari of possible resurgence of attacks on oil installations. The leader of the Forum, Chief Edwin Clark while speaking at his residence in Kiagbodo, Delta State on Thursday claimed that the patience of people from the region was waning as the administration was yet to address their demands.
He listed one of their grievances to include alleged hijack of employment opportunities in the oil sector by people from other regions.
His statement read in part
“The patience of the youths and other critical stakeholders in the region is waning. “I want to remind you all, that our (PANDEF) intervention in the direction of peace and security has continued to help the national economy and contributed substantially to its exit out of recession.
From a drop in oil production to 800,000 barrels per day in 2016, today NNPC is producing over 2.3 million barrels a day, a fourfold increase.
The 16-point agenda which we submitted to Mr President has yet to be properly addressed. The only tangible item that has been attended to is the take-off of the Maritime University, Okerenkoko, Delta State. Our other requests such as the setting up of a Joint Negotiating Team for sustainable peace, relocation of oil companies back to the region…are all totally neglected or being addressed with unfulfilled promises.
Let me note that the total federal budget in the last three years has been as follows: 2016(N6.07tn); 2017 (N7.44tn); now N9.1tn has been appropriated for 2018. Similarly, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo announced a few days ago that the Federal Government had so far invested N510bn on infrastructural development in the last three years. Let me also recall a recent statement by the Minister of Finance that the 2017 budget was overspent by a large sum of N1.6tn.
Can the Federal Government in truth and good conscience tell us how much of this mammoth sum came to fund projects in the Niger Delta? Is this fair, just and equitable? Is this how people who contribute so much to sustain national economy should be treated? We want to call on the Federal Government, once more to retrace its steps regarding the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg.
We continue to enjoin our people to be law-abiding and peaceful, but the total non-action and disregard are eroding the trust which our people place in our ability to continue to interface on their behalf. Our young people and communities must not always be provoked to adopting unorthodox means to pursue their legitimate and unalienable rights as Nigerians and particularly as communities from where the wealth of the country is coming, he added.”
