A Niger Delta activist group, South South Youths Initiative, SSYI, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to caution Niger Delta Affairs minister, Sen. Godswill Akpabio for acts inimical to the Niger Delta region.
The group in a statement signed by the National President, Imeabe Saviour Oscar said the Niger Delta Development Commission(NDDC), was created for the Niger Delta region which had been marginalised, deprived and subjugated over the years in order to cushion the effects.
According to the group, the minister has surreptitiously hijacked the commission by allegedly diverting dividends of the interventionist agency to himself and his croonies.
The group wondered why the minister had refused to constitute a board for the Commission and the agency was still being run contrary to the Act establishing NDDC, as such has caused a lot of set back to the region.
“An unconstitutional administration can never be right in the sight of law, that is the reason we have insisted that a Substantive Board be immediately constituted”.
” This substantive board will benefit the youths of the region, who in the instance are relegated and abandoned’, the statement stated.
It vowed to sustain its ongoing protest against the NDDC, until its demands were meet.
“We started this protest on Wednesday last week and have carried on peacefully till Friday, despite the threats and efforts to use forces of government to push us away from the protest ground. But the ever resilient youths of Niger Delta have stood their ground”.
“The protest will continue from Monday, the 29th Day of August, and we will push it till President Muhammadu Buhari hears us out”.
“We are calling on President Muhammadu Buhari, who promised that issues affecting the people of Niger Delta would top his priority to compel Sen. Godswill Akpabio, his Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, to constitute a board for the Commission”.
“However, we are disturbed that the Sen. Akpabio is interested in painting the efforts of the president black in the region”.
“We know that he is not the Lord of Niger Delta people and he is not in charge of Federal Government. By this we believe that he should be cautioned to do the right thing”, the group stated.
It added; “We also use this medium to state that in this new week we are going to press to totally shutdown operations at the Commission’s headquarters”.
“We will be ever ready to sustain this move until the right thing is done”.
