(Femi Folaranmi, YENAGOA)
The Federal Government has said there is no going in its efforts to enthrone peace in the troubled Niger Delta region.
The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) in its latest statement by its spokesman, Brig. Gen Mudoch Agbinibo had said it would accept to dialogue if it is convinced that the Federal Government is serious.
The Minister of State for Petroluem, and Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroluem Corporation (NNPC), Dr Ibe Kachikwu, who stated this in Yenagoa during a meeting with Governor Henry Seriake Dickson, reassured the people of the Niger Delta that the on-going efforts aimed at addressing the issue of insecurity were not cosmetic but intended to achieve enduring peace and stability in the region.
Kachikwu, who was accompanied by the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Gen. Paul Boroh (rtd) to the meeting, said the Federal Government was committed to “a financially driven and economically motivated pattern” of resolving security concerns and development in Bayelsa and the entire region.
He appealed to the Niger Delta agitators to embrace dialogue for the common good of all stakeholders, noting that oil as a God-given resource was endowed in the region to unify the people of the country.
Also speaking Boroh described the on-going peace initiative as all-encompassing as it is designed to engage all stakeholders including fishermen in the creeks in terms of information gathering and dissemination towards achieving “a seamless and peaceful Niger Delta.”
In his his response, Governor Seriake Dickson commended the Federal Government for its approach in building consensus towards proffering lasting solutions towards ending insecurity in the Niger Delta.
“No military wars to be fought in any community in the Niger Delta with armoured tanks and bullets but that of development, peace and prosperity. But there are wars to be fought nevertheless. Those wars are wars of development, peace and stability and prosperity, wars to conquer and reverse the degradation that has been done to our environment. Those are the challenges that call for collaborative efforts,” Dickson said.