ABUJA – A group of Niger Delta stakeholders, who met, last Saturday, in Abuja at a meeting convened by Minister of Transportation, Chief Rotimi Amaechi, has set up three committees to draw up a framework to address peace and security in the region.
Former Vice President of the National Youth Council of Nigeria, NYCN, and Urhobo ethnic nationality youth leader in Delta State, Alhaji Mumakai Unagha, who attended the meeting, disclosed this to Vanguard, yesterday.
He lambasted some Niger Delta leaders and groups, especially the Niger Delta Coastal States Consultative Forum, which berated Amaechi for summoning the meeting, saying: "The meeting convened by Chief Rotimi Amaechi at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja went well. It was well attended by representatives drawn from all the ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta."
'The meeting discussed the security challenges, economic and political development. Also examined was governance and infrastructural development as well as issues associated with the Niger Delta development Commission.
"At the end of the meeting, three committees were set up to draw up frame work, especially to reach out to stakeholders in the Niger Delta for addressing the peace and security in the region," he said.
Unagha asserted: "My take on this matter, is that there is no other person better than Honourable RotimiAmechi to summon a meeting of leaders in the South-South, also in the Niger Delta. Apart from being a former governor of a state, he is a serving Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In all ramifications, he is qualified to convey a meeting of South-South leaders."
His words: "As for those leaders going under the guise of Niger Delta, Coastal States Coalition, we have no confidence in them any longer. Today, they will blow cold and tomorrow they will blow hot as they are the major problem in the Niger Delta. In the night, they will go and negotiate with government for what comes to their pocket and in the day time, they sponsor militants. They are not after the well-being of the region."
"In the days of the former President, they were political jobbers that came up with several names such as the South-South People's Assembly, Southern People Assembly to root for the former President, now they founded Niger Delta Coastal States Coalition as a convenient umbrella to disrupt the progressive programme of this government and seek for further negotiations," he said.
Unagha added: "I challenge the group of these coalition states' leaders to tell Niger Deltans what they were able to bring to the area when Jonathan was in power. These are people who were nominated to the failed National Conference without meaningful inputs. Rather than representing the interest of the Niger Delta, they were there to fend for themselves."
"On the summit canvassed by certain quarters, I think that that is the best way forward for the Niger Delta and not dialogue, as some persons are agitating. In such a situation, ethnic nationality should be represented on equal basis," he said.
source: odili.net
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