Chief Edwin Clark

By Francis Sadhere

A Niger Delta group, South South Reawaking Group (SSRG) has faulted the credibility of the Chief Edwin Clark led dialogue team with the Federal Government, calling on President Buhari not to go ahead with the dialogue.

The group who made this position in a press statement signed by it’s Convener, Mr. Joe Ambakederimo in Warri, Delta State, said the crop of leaders paraded by the Chief Clark’s team were the same old leaders who have being dualoging with federal government without results.

They accused the dialogue team of being “corrupt, selfish, self centered and  misguided and egoistic,” adding that they always negotiate and dialogue into their pocket and the region remains the same.

The group said nothing good will come out of the dialogue if the federal government goes ahead with it, stressing that the credibility of some of the persons that have put themselves forward  for this meeting was questionable.

According to the group, “We have observed that the federal government may have missed the track for it to have decided to hold a meeting with the Pan Niger delta stakeholders forum that is due to take place anytime this week.

“Our position is borne out of the assessment of the characters and credibility of some of the persons that have put themselves forward  for this meeting in the guise of naming it  a pan Niger delta stakeholders.

“Some burning pertinent questions are unanswered such as, is this the dialogue that the Niger delta people have  clamoured  for all this while that is about to start? If the answer is in the affirmative the next question to ask is what position and process  have they put in place to adopt to achieve  progress.

“When did they call a meeting of the general house  comprising of all ethnic  nationalities  to take a clear cut position  to present to govt? Are these the best the Niger delta can put forward for such a critical meeting?

The group also alleged that “the pan Niger delta stakeholders  group are peopled with those who are the problems of the region, never wanting to go away and are  the ones giving covert support for the destruction of oil and gas facilities in the region.”

The group therefore added that the issues about the Niger Delta were critical issues that must be given the best attention and must not be trivialized, adding, “We need fresh ideas and fresh minds at this time to drive the processes that will lead to an altruistic end.”

“They have made dialoging and negotiating their pass time, always putting themselves forward meanwhile we have not achieved anything meaningful in the region and they insisting that they must be the ones to continue to speak for the rest of us.

“Those who are hobnobbing with these persons from the govt side do not mean well and if they insist that it is this crop of leaders that they must dialogue with, then govt must have derailed and the people should not expect anything different.

“For us we do not only criticize but we will always advise and proffer solutions for the single reason that we must all join hands to ensure we grow our region and work for the good of our people.

“The issues that we expect to do is massive “A” class infrastructure across the region if possible in partnership with the states of the region, restart the EGTL and Brass LNG, a Railway line running from Obudu in Cross River State to traverse all the other states to terminate at Ofosu, the boundary town between Edo State and Ondo State., a fresh East -West Road or leverage on the coastal road initially proposed by NDDC.

“We need more of the military formations in the region as is already approved for Bayelsa and Delta states.  These are institutional development and empowerment of our people. Funds to drive these projects could be accessed from multilateral agencies with very minimal interest rates.

“We will therefore hold the federal Govt responsible if nothing tangible comes out of this new phase of dialogue  should the  federal government  insist on this same set of leaders,” the group added.