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Delta Oil Communities Reject FG Summit


Vanguard (Lagos)


NEWS
18 June 2008
Posted to the web 18 June 2008

By Emma Amaize
Lagos

Oil and gas producing communities from the Isoko, Itsekiri, Ndokwa, Urhobo and
Ijaw ethnic groups in Delta State, yesterday, rejected the planned summit on
the Niger-Delta region, which is being packaged by the Federal Government,
saying that it is irrelevant and not intended to ameliorate their sufferings.

The communities spoke through their leaders in the Delta State Oil and Gas
Producing Areas Leaders Forum, among them, Chief Gabriel Mabiaku, chairman (
Warri Kingdom ), Senator Spanner Okpozo (Isoko ethnic nationality), Hon
(Justice) James Obi (Ndokwa), Chief Peter Kpogban (Urhobo) and Chief Emmanuel
Ebimami (Ijaw). In a communique issued after a crucial meeting in Warri, the
body made up of traditional rulers, leaders and elders of the oil and gas
producing communities of Delta State frowned at the nomination of Dr Ibrahim
Gambari as head of the summit. "It is most unacceptable to our people, as he is
not familiar with the Niger-Delta terrain and its peculiar problem", they said.



The body maintained that the proposal to appoint Gambari as chairman of the
summit further confirms the intense marginalization of the people who are
always denied of relevant appointments at the federal level, even when it is
known that the area has qualified people, contending that national development
is dependent on resources from the region. They called on the Federal
Government to implement the various reports both in the past and present period
on the development of the region in consultation with the Generals Theophilus
Danjuma and Ogomudia panel, to reduce the anger of the people instead of
empanelling a fresh summit.

In the alternative, the body asked that a special panel on> Niger-Delta
committee made up of five representatives each from the Niger-Delta States and
nominees of the Federal government be constituted to prepare a marshal plan for
the region within a three months time frame for immediate implementation to
assuage the sufferings of the people.


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