By Simon Ebegbulem, Emmanuel Elebeke & Ochuko Akuopha

Ahead of the proposed peace meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, today, to find lasting solution to  the problems in the Nigeria Delta region, a cross section of leaders and stakeholders of ethnic nationalities in the region has continued to beat the drum of war, alleging exclusion from the meeting.

Some have threatened to not only reject the outcome of the meeting, but seek legal redress as well.

Among groups, yesterday, alleging exclusion were Ndokwa National Youth Movement, NNYM, Ndokwa   Neku Union, NNU and Isoko   Development Union, IDU.

This came as an activist in the region, Paul Bebenimibo, said a meeting without former militant leader, High Chief Government Ekpemupolo aka Tompolo, might not achieve the desired results.

The protesting groups frowned at the proposed dialogue between President Muhammadu Buhari and the Chief E. K. Clark-led Pan- Niger Delta Forum, PNDEF, accusing Clark of marginalization.

It will be recalled that the Pan-Niger Delta stakeholders held a meeting for peace initiative in the region, at Clark’s residence in Asokoro, Abuja, weekend, where representatives of different ethnic nationalities from the region were to be announced.

The PNDF had in the meeting, rejected the Federal Government’s move to launch a $10 billion (N4 trillion) infrastructural rebirth investment programme in the area.

The multi-trillion naira programme is part of the Short and Medium Term Priorities to Grow Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Industry (2015 to 2019), tagged the ‘7 BigWins’, a new initiative of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.

The Niger Delta leaders’ rejection of the move was anchored on the fact that the initiative was private sector-driven with the aim of dragging the government into it.

Dismissing the delegate list,  the President General of   IDU and NNU, the apex socio-political organs of the Isoko and Ndokwa-Ukwani    people, High Chief Iduh Amadhe,  cautioned the Federal Government on the peace meeting with a few ethnic groups in the Niger Delta to   the exclusion of other major ethnic nationalities.

Going down the memory lane in the Niger Delta Avengers struggle, Amadhe said the Ndokwa and Isoko condemned  the bombing  of oil facilities in  the region and asked the agitators to embrace peaceful dialogue as a way out of the agitation.

He recalled that the leadership of the two apex bodies had been involved in all peace dialogues and meetings beginning from Uyo in Akwa Ibom State on June 10, 2016, which culminated in the high level stakeholders consultative meeting of the Niger Delta coastal states on August 19, 2016 at PTI conference Centre, Effurun, Delta State, convened by Chief E.K Clark, after which the communiqué was published in the Vanguard media on  August 26, 2016.

According to him, “It was resolved at the meeting that any platform  for dialogue and negotiation should be all embracing, involving all the ethnic nationalities and interest groups in the region to holistically address the problem.

The list of delegates later came to us as a rude shock  and smacked of betrayal that after the meeting at the residence of Chief E.K Clark at Asokoro, Abuja on 29 October, 2016, members of the Central Working Committee of the Pan-Niger Delta Platform  selected their friends and relatives from a few ethnic groups to represent the region, without considering the   upland ethnic nationalities of Isoko and Ndokwa with oil and gas facilities that generate over 600 mega watts of electricity and produces   about 23.5 per cent of the total crude oil in Nigeria.”