By Tejiri Ebikeme
THE Chairmen of Gbaramatu communities in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State have assured the Federal Government to their readiness to support the Government in finding lasting solutions to the problems of the oil rich Niger Delta Region.
Chairman of Kokodiagbene Community, Comrade Sheriff Mulade, speaking on behalf of the Chairmen of Gbaramatu Communities on the sideline of the visit of the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo to Oporoza, Headquarters of Gbaramatu Kingdom on Monday, January 16, 2017 said that;” The Chairmen of Gbaramatu Communities welcome Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo to the land of peace and honey and to assure him and the Presidency of our readiness to collaborate, cooperate, communicate and work together for the betterment and development of the Niger Delta Region in particular and Nigeria in general”.
Comrade Mulade said also;” We want to plead with the Presidency to use the opportunity of the visit of the Vice President to the area to find a lasting solution to the problems of the region. It will interest the public to note that Gbaramatu Kingdom has sacrificed her communities, image and lives and has been on the forefront agitating for the rapid development of our neglected Communities and therefore we deserve special attention in terms of allocating development projects”.
“We are using this medium to call on all sons and daughters of our great Kingdom to come out enmass to welcome the dynamic Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Prof Yemi Osinbajo to our land of peace and to also urge Niger Deltans to embrace peace and support President Muhammadu Buhari to bring the needed development through the change mantra. The time has come for Niger Deltans to bury their ethnic and individual differences and work together for peace and development of the neglected oil rich Niger Delta Region”, Comrade Mulade said.
Meanwhile, Niger Delta Activist, Comrade Sheriff Mulade has appealed to the Niger Delta Avengers and other militant groups in the region to give peace a chance so as to give the Federal Government the needed opportunity to take holistic approach towards the development of the area.
Niger Delta Avengers, the militant group that had claimed responsibility for many sabotage attacks in Niger Delta last year, recently said that it has asked its fighters to prepare to fight the “enemy” as it claimed Nigerian authorities were not ready for dialogue.
The Avengers declared a ceasefire last year after staging major attacks on oil facilities crippling Nigeria’s oil output.
Another former militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which had agreed to lay down arms in 2009, had said a week ago it had lost trust in the government to bring peace to the region.
Those behind the pipeline attacks, which began in early 2016, say they want a greater share of Nigeria’s energy wealth to go to the southern region.
But the Activist begged the Niger Delta Avengers and other militant groups to allow the prevailing peace in the region to be sustained, saying that peaceful negotiation was the only way to go.
Violence, according to the Activist who spoke in Warri, Delta state, at the weekend would do nobody any good and appealed to the Niger Delta Avengers and other militant groups to follow the path of peace.
” I want to state it here that we cannot allow Niger Delta environment to be a theatre of war. All militant groups in the region should give peace a chance”, he said.
While stressing the need for the prevailing peace to be sustained, he strongly advised President Muhammadu Buhari to be proactive and show sense of commitment towards ending lingering agitation for the development of the oil rich region.
He said that;”The people of the region are tired of begging the Federal Government to develop the region producing the wealth of the nation. The needful should be done by this administration for the suffering people of the region. Government must do everything humanly possible to avert unnecessary crisis that will further ruin our economy”.
