By Akpokona Omafuaire

WARRI—Delta Ijaw Oil Producing Communities Youths Assembly, DIOPCYA, has called on Delta State House of Assembly to quash the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, DESOPADEC Amendment Bill 2015, sponsored by Governor Ifeanyi Okowa.

DIOPCYA, in a statement yesterday, in Warri, by Jackson Timiyan and Joel Tonjoh, National Coordinator and National Publicity Secretary respectively, described the DESOPADEC Amendment Bill 2015 as inimical to the principles of derivation.

They also described it as a display of wickedness, and an act of inhumanity to the oil and gas producing communities in Delta State.

The group vowed not to fold its hands and watch the bill scale through in the state House of Assembly, just as it tagged the bill as anti-people.

“It is clearly an attempt to rip off the funds of the 13 percent derivation fund given to the oil and gas producing communities in the state through DESOPADEC by generalising and ethnicising the commission for ulterior motives, which will further impoverish, marginalise and deprive the oil and gas producing communities of their God-given wealth,” the group said.

Pledging its support for the SMART agenda of the governor, the group urged the Okowa administration to rely solely on the principle of derivation as regards oil and gas producing areas.