…REJECTION OF RESTRUCTURING: N’Assembly puts Nigerians on the precipice

…N’Delta groups; people are tired of dialogue, want devt — MONARCH

By Emma Amaize & Davies Iheamnachor

ASABA—ACTING President Yemi Osinbajo, has invited the Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, which threatened, on Monday, to pull out of further engagements with the Federal Government if it (government) was not ready to dialogue with the regional body on the 16-point demand it submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari, November, last year, to a meeting tomorrow in Abuja.

Osinbajo

Convener of PANDEF and South-South leader, Chief Edwin Clark, who confirmed the invitation  in a chat with Vanguard on phone, last night, said  that the body had rejected the draft of the two-year Strategic Implementation Work Plan, SWIP, (2017-2019), a new road map  on the Niger Delta by the government.

It was not clear yesterday if Prof Osinbajo will discuss the threat of PANDEF to pull out of further meetings with government on November 1, 2017, except it reconsiders its current no dialogue stance on its 16-point demand, but Clark said that the meeting was over the group’s withdrawal from the inter-ministerial committee that drafted the SWIP.

Meanwhile, three civil society organisations, CSOs, in the Niger Delta, yesterday, warned that the country was on the thin line of destruction with the vote against restructuring by the National Assembly in the ongoing constitutional amendment.

The groups, Niger Delta Security Watch Organisation of Nigeria, NDSWON, Ijaw People’s Development Initiative and Foundation of Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Crusaders, FOHURAC, led by Dickson Bekederemo, Austin Ozobo and Alaowei Cleric, noted that “Nigeria is fast moving to the cliff of break up due to its structural imbalances.”

Similarly, a Rivers State monarch, His Royal Majesty, Eze Robinson, Eze Ekpeye Logbo, yesterday, said there was no need for more dialogue with the Federal Government, as PANDEF, had insisted.

The monarch, who spoke to Vanguard in Port-Harcourt, said that the people were tired of dialogue and want action, not grammar from government.

He described the Federal Government’s Strategic Implementation Work Plan, SWIP,   (2017-2019), a new roadmap for the development of Niger Delta, as a delay tactic to hoodwink the people of the region.

On Osinbanjo’s meeting with PANDEF, Clark said, “We have gone through the SWIP, it is a deceit, as far as we are concerned, it has no value to us and everything about the work plan is a manipulation of the 2017 budget.”

“We have made our position to the acting President and the Minister  that we are not part of the work plan, I told you (Vanguard) before that  the Minister of Niger Delta invited us (PANDEF) to nominate representatives, they did not consult our representatives, who attended two or three meetings and they went ahead to draft the plan.

“That is what we are going to discuss with the acting President, but it has nothing to do with the dialogue that we have been demanding.   We want dialogue, ours is a special case and we did not see anything that is worthwhile in the SWIP”, which has only the imprints of the Ministry of Niger Delta, Ministry of Petroleum, Ministry of Environment, Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, and Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP.

“What of the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Agriculture and others, what are their plans for the region, we are not part of the charade, we have rejected it,” he said.

Meanwhile, the CSOs in a statement, said: “Nigeria is fast moving to the cliff of break up due to its structural imbalances. The raging argument of restructuring that has occupied the center stage of our body polity is the only solution that can save the country from the impending tragic end.”