By Emma Arubi & Akpokona Omafuaire.
WARRI – VEHICULAR movement along the ever busy Warri/PortHarcourt road was on hold for several hours Saturday evening as youths from the Niger Delta blocked the PTI junction, Delta State, to protest the alleged failure of the Niger Delta Ministry to address the developmental issues in the region.

The over hundred youths were led by Spokesman of Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari’s Niger Delta Peoples Salvation front, Rex Anighoro.

The youths bemoan the failure of the ministry and also called for a probe into the activities of the ministry, noting that the reasons for setting it up had been defeated.

This is coming few days after the Ijaw People Development Initiative, IPEDI, led by Comrade Austin Ozobo.

The youths’ action was sequel to information that Elder Godsday Orubebe, minister, was passing through the route for a function in the area, the placard wielding youths disrupted traffic for several hours.

Unperturbed, the Minister, who was in a long convoy did not address the aggrieved youths who gathered at the P.T.I junction.

Anighoro while reading a speech noted that a Sovereign National Conference remained the only solution to the lopsided distribution of wealth in the country.

They maintained that the popularity of President Goodluck Jonathan had continued to wane in the region because the ministry had failed woefully in its mandate.‘’Today, we emphatically state that the overwhelming support and solidarity that the president received before and during the presidential election has nose-dived so much so that everybody now derides Mr President.

‘’This sorry state fuelled by the failure of the Niger Delta Ministry, must be arrested by all well-meaning people from this region who bled for the advancement of our cause’’, Anighoro said.

The youths noted that a first step towards sanitising the Niger Delta Ministry was the removal of
Orubebe and the setting up a panel to investigate the ministry.

‘’There is nothing to show for all the monies released to the ministry since its establishment and the president has refused to sack those who are under developing the region.

‘’We the youths of the nine states of the Niger Delta region reject the Minister as he does not represent the interest of the people of the region’’, the youths’ coalition argued.