Niger Deltans have been assured of the sincerity of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to implement its directive that all the oil companies operating in Nigeria should relocate both their administrative and operational headquarters to areas of their major operations, irrespective of the recent resolution by the House of Representatives.

NDOKWA youths, under the aegis of Ndokwa National Youths Movement, NNYM, yesterday, described the alleged insincerity of the Federal Government in its dealings with issues affecting the Niger Delta as an invitation to resumption of hostilities in the oil-rich region.

The Federal Government, yesterday, hinted that it is not going back on its plans for illegal crude oil refiners in the Niger Delta, stating that it was working assiduously to ensure that the initiative comes to fruition.

Deputy Inspector-General of Police in Charge of Training and Development, Mr Emmanuel Inyang, yesterday, said that criminality in the Niger Delta region has dropped drastically in the last two months.

These visitations embarked by the vice president are needed to build confidence to enable it to carry its laudable programmes for the region

YOUTHS of Niger Delta, yesterday, disrupted a special session convened by the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, to hear allegations of corruption levelled against the commission by some contractors.

Is there anything to appraise in the Buhari led government? What is there to appraise? Can you multiply zero? If you multiply zero, what would it give you?

The Federal Government, yesterday, said that the blueprint for the Niger Delta, designed to pursue the development of the region and end militancy, will be ready in about four weeks time.

The Niger Delta Master Plan unveiled by the administration of former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, was perhaps the first serious attempt by any government to move away from the tokenism that has characterized interventions in the region said to produces the nation’s wealth. Before then, there hadn’t been any clear-cut policy on how to permanently and satisfactorily address the problems of the region.

The Presidency has finally come out with a bumper package aimed at accelerating the return of peace to the troubled Niger Delta region and ensure steady production of oil, Nigeria’s biggest foreign exchange earner, and gas, the badly-needed feedstock for the nation’s power generating plants.

When Vice President Yemi Osinbajo commenced his tours of Niger Delta communities in January this year, most sceptical observers saw them as just another round of jamborees by the Federal Government to buy time and sustain the current relative calm which pervades the oil-rich Niger Delta. The area had, hitherto, been wracked by a riot of militant attacks of crude oil infrastructure.

There has been a deliberate policy by successive Nigerian governments to keep the Niger Delta question permanently in the back burner of national discourse, as far as the issue of the country’s socio-economic development is concerned.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Friday reaffirmed President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment to offer a better deal to the people of Niger Delta.

A Niger Delta Ex-Militant on Monday applauded Acting President Yemi Osinbajo for directing oil firms to relocate their headquarters to the oil bearing states within the Niger-Delta region.

Plans are underway by the Federal Government to make oil producing communities in the Niger-Delta region petrochemical industrial hubs in the country to give a sense of belonging and mitigate restiveness.