By Samuel Oyadongha
YENAGOA—THE Ijaw Youth Council, IYC,  worldwide has called on the Federal Government to take steps to implement the core recommendations of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Committee’s report on restructuring, power devolution and true federalism.

President Muhammadu Buhari

Secretary General of IYC, worldwide, Mr. Alfred Kemepado,  in a statement in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, said  that only the implementation of the report of the committee led by the Governor òf Kaduna State, Mr. Nasir el-Rufai, before the 2019 elections would show seriousness on the part of the Federal Government.

Kemepado said that the curious silence which had followed the celebrated recommendations of the el-Rufai committee, seemed to suggest that the recommendations were inspired by a motive to deceive the people once again for the purpose of elections.

He said that the APC and the Federal  Government have a moral burden to prove their sincerity to Nigerians on the recommendations of the el-Rufai Committee.

The El Rufai Committee which made far reaching recommendations on power devolution, true federalism also proposed to put onshore mineral resources including oil and gas under the control of the states of the federation.

Kemepado said that the recommendations reinforced the spirit of the letters of the Kaiama Declaration which captured the demand of the Ijaw people for resource control within the Nigerian federation.

He noted that the position of Governor Seriake Dickson on the issue of restructuring represents the collective view not only of the Ijaw people but also the entire Niger Delta.

The IYC scribe called on Ijaw youths across higher institutions in the South West to mobilise to the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, where Governor Dickson is billed to deliver a crucial lecture titled “Restructuring and the Search for a Productive Nigeria,” as a distinguished guest lecturer of the institution’s Faculty of Arts on  July 12, 2018.