By Ken Asinobi
Irked by the continued delay to constitute a new board for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) more than 6 months after carrying out forensic audit on the Commission, the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) says it would shut down oil and gas operations in the Niger Delta region if a new board is not put in place to run the affairs of the intervention agency.
The Council has also urged Mr. President to take them seriously as they mean every bit of their threat.
Rising from an emergency meeting of the group in Port Harcourt on Monday, IYC President, Comrade Peter Igbifa insisted that the Council would not guarantee the continuation of oil and gas operations in the Niger Delta region if the Presidency fails to heel to their demand.
“NDDC is an act of the law and the law provides for it to have a Board. Sitting on the Board you will have Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Akwa Ibom, name it. If there is a Board today, Rivers State and the different States that are represented will be answerable to their people.
“And upon that, it means that these people who mount the Board will do justice to the development of the various states, even in addition to the states that are not represented”, he said.
The IYC leader also lampooned the Presidency for not acting on the findings following the forensic audit of the Commission, adding that the one on NDDC has turned out to be bigger than the one that happened in the NNPC.
Igbifa said youths of the Niger Delta are ‘pained in their hearts’ that NDDC which came before the North East Development Commission, is enmeshed by political interests, asking, “Otherwise what is forensic audit that the Prime Water Copers didn’t do to NNPC, did the board step aside”.
“The board was there and investigations were done and they did their report. Even if you are doing forensic audit of Nigeria as a country, it will not be more than 6 months”, he said, restating the group’s threat that #EndSars would be a child’s play if the federal government turns deaf ears to their demands.
“When we say we are shutting down, there would be no activity and that is the major reason why internally in our meeting, we have advised our people to help anybody you can. The moment we get close to this activity, anybody you can help with garri, rice, beans and whatever, please do, because we are going to lock down activities in the region. No road movement, no water movement and no activities within that period”, the IYC leader declared.
While giving kudos to President Buhari for giving them listening ears and releasing N20bn for the takeoff of the East-West road project, Igbifa however queried the quality and slow pace of work going on at the East West road.
According to him, the work being done on the East West Road by the contractor, Setraco is looking like what he called, a Local Government contract.
“There has to be a massive construction activity. We are talking of a busy road where you have a huge number of trucks for machines and men, so that this project called East West Road shouldn’t stay longer than three months.
“Even if you are working a bridge from Port Harcourt to Lagos, commitment alone should not keep the road more than two years. But, regrettably, the East West road has been under construction for more than two decades and has also claimed many lives”, he said.
