By Ndubuisi Orji
A civil society group, United Niger Delta Energy Development Security Strategy(UNDEDSS) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to adopt the same approach used by former President Musa Yar’ Adua to contain militancy in the Niger Delta, to stem renewed insurgency in the area.
In a statement issued by UNDEDSS Secretary General, Mr. Tony Uranta, the group said in adopting the Yar’Adua template, the Federal Government should appoint a credible Special Adviser on the region and re-establish the Niger Delta Committee/Council that operated five sub-Committees to proffer a holistic and sustainable solution to the challenges identified in the region.
According to the statement, “UNDEDSS and other leading stakeholders in the region have tirelessly interfaced with very senior members of this Administration and given them a detailed template the President should deploy now to resolve this growing insecurity in the region, which is negatively impacting all of Nigeria.
While reiterating the need for the government needs to adopt what the 2008 Niger Delta Technical Committee’s Report advises,
UNDEDSS listed immediate actions the government can take assure the Niger Delta people of its sincere commitment to justice and equity to include “the release of ten secondary schoolchildren and others detained as prisoners-of-war for many weeks since the military’s invasion of Gbaramatu Kingdom; the return of Symbols of Gbaramatu traditional worship; and, most importantly, President Buhari addressing the nation to announce that he would personally lead the revival of the 2009 template premised on a Niger Delta Development Committee under his direct supervision, plus grant free passage to all stakeholders he is ready to directly dialogue with.”
Besides, the group said “in the light of of the conflicting statements being made by too many putative representatives of both the region and the Federal Government,it is necessary, however, to state that the Niger Delta is not going to know sustainable peace via the coterie of so-called Contact Groups or Committees! And, that there cannot be any reliable dialogue, between the government and the region, without a commitment to justice and equity by President Buhari himself”