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From Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
A group, Ijaw Interest Advocates (IIA), Izanzan Intellectual Camp, has called for support from well-meaning people of the Niger Delta region to come together and rescue the Niger Delta Ministry and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) from the grip of those frustrating efforts to develop the region.
The national coordinator of the group, Arerebo Salaco Yerinmene in a statement while noting that the people should celebrate the exit of former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio said his reign ruined the Niger Delta region as all on-going NDDC projects’ sites were shut down and contractors were not paid.
According to him the development and economy of the people in the region were greatly hampered as some forfeited personal properties from bank loans; some went to prison for inability to service bank loans; some developed high blood pressure (BP) and died because of loans from banks.
Yerinmene who maintained that Akpabio’s tenure was used to deceive the Presidency and Nigerians added that the federal government’s anti-graft would be a fluke if the tenure of Akpabio was not investigated.
While recalling how the spilled blood of Ijaw Youths gave birth of the NDDC and later the Ministry of Niger Delta, he decried a situation whereby the hawks in Abuja had turned the NDDC and the Ministry into a cash cow instead of attending to the developmental needs of the long –suffering people of the Niger Delta.
He lamented the lopsided employment exercise in the NDDC and the Niger Delta Ministry which is threatening the career progress of Niger Deltans.
Yerinmene therefore called on the people to stick together and ensure NDDC and Niger Delta Ministry lived up to its expectation of the founding fathers of the Ijaw struggle.
“These two all important core regional offices (NDM/NDDC) were created from the bloody Ijaw youth crises in which countless lives of Ijaw youths were sacrificed, Ijaw communities were razed down completely, even the multinational oil companies paid dearly and lost a lot.
“Those men and women from the South South that helped to facilitate Akpabio’s destruction of the region would not be forgotten so soon. Their roles and love for a pot of porridge against the suffering of our people will be in the history books for record purposes.
“However, the struggle is not yet over; we must go to the second phase which is to rescue the NDM and the NDDC back from the hawks in Abuja, and rewind them back to the Niger Delta region for the purposes they were created for.
“We give special greetings to the few true comrades in the Niger Delta region that stood firm against all odds of harassment, bribery or financial inducements/employment offers, all sorts of intimidations, and ultimate threats to their lives.
