By Victor ‘Tunde Oso

A pan-Niger Delta socio-political and cultural group,  the Assembly of Niger Delta Indigenous People,  ANDIP, has canvassed for true federalism, where all federating units have their own regional, state and local government and policing system. It also urged the National Assembly to remove items like healthcare, police, transportation and many more, from the exclusive list.

Vice-Chairman, Public Affairs and Communications, Sony Bernard, in a statement made available to Sunday Vanguard, said the system being operated in Nigeria is a fraud and it’s not working for anyone, except the very few who see Nigeria as their business estate.

According to Bernard, ANDIP’s intervention in the lives of the people and destiny of the Niger Delta region becomes necessary in view of alleged ill treatment being meted out to the region and her people by successive Nigerian governments, noting that the time has come for the region to decide their fate, which he noted includes emancipation and freedom the repressive Nigerian State.

The central government, the group stated, is under developing the Niger Delta region, stressing that this is not acceptable to ANDIP, which he said have chosen to advocate true federalism where fiscal autonomy and total overhaul of the Nigerian constitution is embarked upon to birth a new federal structure that will promote regional growth and massive human and material development. The statement maintained this will end the regime of deliberate disempowerment of the people.

Bernard alleged that the FG has been operating in the region in a manner that shows its sole concern is to engage oil and gas exploration and its accrued revenues leaving behind abject poverty, unemployment, mass illiteracy, environmental degradation and many more anti human vices.

Bernard further alleged that there are tendencies on the part of the state to wittingly stoke conflicts to apparently divide and weaken the people more than ever before and this is what the ANDIP is standing against. For being blessed with enormous oil and gas resources, the group holds that the peoples’ lives must be better for it because the region lays the golden egg.

The group alleged that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has not fared better in the management of conflicts in the region.

“Nigeria to the best of our knowledge was meant to be a union of nations, that’s the dream of Nigeria our parents and grandparents were persuaded to sign up for by the colonial masters.