By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

LAGOS—Insinuations  about President Muhammadu Buhari’s bias against the Niger Delta region have been laid to rest with his decision to fast-track the cleaning up of Ogoni land, Rivers State, the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC said yesterday.

President Muhammadu Buhari

Addressing newsmen in Lagos, party spokesman, Alhaji Lai Mohammed also identified the adulteration of the original version of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB as preventing the party from taking a position on the bill.

Mohammed  said that APC-led Federal Government  would focus on creating more job opportunities and providing infrastructure in the Niger Delta as a way of addressing the spate of restiveness in the region.

Noting that President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to adopt the report of the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP on the clean up of Ogoni land as one of the most significant decisions taken since the advent of the new administration, Mohammed said: “This action of the President transcends all the needless arguments about the appointments so far made by him, because it touches directly on the well-being of a long-suffering people, people whose farmlands, drinking water, homes and sources of living have been deeply affected by hydrocarbon pollution.”

Read full  text of the Press Conference by the National Publicity Secretary of APC by Alhaji Lai Mohammed here.