By Emma Amaize & Chancel Sunday

NATIONAL Leader of Pan Niger Delta People’s Congress, PNDPC, HM Charles Ayemi-Botu, has asked Niger Delta leaders pleading with him to come back to Pan Niger Delta People’s Forum, PANDEF, to join PNDPC.

•His Majesty, Charles Ayemi-Botu

Ayemi-Botu, former national chairman of the Traditional Rulers of Oil Minerals Producing Communities of Nigeria, TROMPCON, spoke, weekend, just as the former Minister of Police Affairs, Alaowei Broderick Bozimo, and others, intensified pressure on him to return to PANDEF.

He declared: “I will not renege on my stand as the national leader of PNDPC. The congress belongs to all true Niger Deltans and non-Niger Deltans that live here. So I appeal to other Niger Delta leaders talking to me, to join PNDPC. At our last meeting attended by those who went back to their vomit, we resolved that PNDPC should exist independent of PANDEF and pursue common goals for the region. We have not changed that position.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the purported merger of PNDPC with PANDEF is not only false and misleading, but also a mere figment of the imagination of those who orchestrated the non-existent merger.  On the contrary, at Opokuma summit of PNDPC, it was unanimously agreed that the PNDPC would continue to operate as an independent entity mandated by the agitators to open fresh dialogue with the federal government on the way forward. It should be placed on record that no meeting has been held to review the standpoint of the PNDPC after the Opokuma summit. Therefore, no such decision has been taken to merge with any other organization.

“While PNDPC is open to constructive engagement with all critical stakeholders in the Niger Delta project, it has no plans to merge with any organization, at least not in the foreseeable future.

“It is, therefore laughable, unethical and a very painful betrayal of trust by a few self-serving individuals who have a penchant for double standard to unilaterally declare that PNDPC has ceased to exist.”

He alleged that the leadership of PANDEF gave N20 million gratification to some unscrupulous persons to destabilize the PNDPC, but said, “I can tell you today that they failed because, as the national leader of the group, I have declared that the congress did not merge with any group.”

Contacted on the allegation, National Leader of PANDEF, Senator Edwin Clark, denied knowledge of N20 million given to anybody to destabilize PNDPC, asking, “Where will I get that kind of money from and even if I see such money, why should it be spent on such a project?”

Bozimo, who spoke in an interview with Vanguard, said: “HM Ayemi-Botu is my traditional ruler. We have been together in the struggle for the region’s well-being from the 1970s. I am appealing to him, let us remain united for the sake of the people and the region. Is it now that we are old that we should part ways in this course that we started together when we were younger?”