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Cautions S’S govs against blind endorsement
From Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
The Niger Delta Development Monitoring Group (NIDDEMOG) has challenged the presidential candidates of major political parties to make known their action plan for the Niger Delta region, including reviving the abandoned East-West Road project, revitalising the region’s seaports and addressing environmental degradation.
The group warned the presidential candidates against using cheap controversy over who brought about poverty and other trivial issues to divert the attention of massive voter bases and urged them to focus on telling each region, including the Niger Delta, their action plan for development, prosperity and empowerment.
The group’s team lead, Chief Nengi James-Eriworio, in a statement at the weekend, also called on the state governors of the region to show capacity in leadership by ensuring that their endorsement of a particular candidate is not mere ‘jamboree,’ but a means of securing commitment towards improving federal interventions in road infrastructure, seaports, refineries and improved shore protection plans for communities being washed away from the region.
He described the recent controversies on the coastal road as an indication that most of the presidential candidates are not in tune with the challenges facing each region, particularly the Niger Delta.
He said: “How can a former Governor of Cross River, Donald Duke, who is a presidential candidate of a party, be speaking without a clear knowledge of the issues concerning the region? Most of the issues facing the region are not being discussed by the presidential candidates, not even President Tinubu.
“All they believe is that the Niger Delta region is taken due to oil pipeline surveillance contracts and the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP). Our problem as a region is more than that. Most of our communities are being washed away by the ocean due to poor shore protection plans. We have lost many lives due to 26 years of the abandoned East-West Road project and we no longer have functioning refineries and seaports.
“Instead of discussing issues on what the Federal Government will do for the states on climate change, as it’s affecting our coastal environment and remediation of the damaged environment of oil-producing communities, they are busy engaging in unfair and disappointing personal attacks and use of derogatory language on one another. This would not advance the development of the Niger Delta.”
He called on the presidential candidates to start discussing issues of “Gas flaring reduction issues, total completion of the East-West Road plan, comprehensive plan on shore protection, Niger Delta states restoration and remediation plan on cumulative oil spills, total cleanup and renaming the HYPREP as agency for environmental cleanup.”
