NDDC: Ijaw Groups Tackle FG Over Unfair Treatment Of Host Communities

Ijaw rights group, Ijaw Interest Advocates (IIA) and the Izanzan Intellectual Camp (IIC) have commenced mobilization across oil-producing communities in the Niger Delta, in preparation against what they described as unending injustice against such communities.

The groups, in a statement jointly issued on Monday and made available to journalists in Abuja, berated the President Muhammadu Buhari administration for allegedly remaining bent on perpetuating a system of deliberate marginalization against oil producing communities, which they said had given so much to the development of Nigeria and had received nothing in return.

The groups, in the statement issued by their Coordinator, Arerebo Salaco Yerinmene (Snr), particularly frowned at the constitution of the recently inaugurated Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), noting that the Chairman of the new Board, Lauretta Onochie, just like many instances before now, was appointed out of a non-oil producing community in Delta State.

They alleged that the federal government had consistently worked against giving needed opportunities to people from the oil producing areas so as to perpetually keep them impoverished.

“NDDC was created specifically for the development of oil producing communities and the people in terms of staffing, appointments and development, but the agency has now been systematically turned to an agency for settling politicians, irrespective of their places of origin.

“Such reckless appointments and breach of the NDDC Establishment Act usually serve as fuel for future agitations in the oil producing communities. It seems the government derives pleasure in creating the problems for people to agitate in order to send the military to crush and burn down our oil producing communities on the slightest provocation to protest against government injustice

“It wasn’t an easy pill to swallow when Dr. Cairo Ojugbo from a non-oil producing community in Delta State was appointed Executive Director Projects in the Commission from the start of Buhari’s administration. Cairo cornered the entire NDDC Delta State budget to his area that is not producing a litre of oil, thereby completely marginalising and abandoning the oil producing communities to their fate.

“Just as we were about recovering from that suffocation, the appointment of Mrs Lauretta Onochei from that same non-oil producing area of Delta State has again, dealt another major blow, unleashed to undermine and provoke the people and to further perpetually deny the oil producing communities of their rights.

“The mind-bugging questions are still begging for answers: Why is it that the most important decision-making positions in the NDDC are not always given to indigenes from oil bearing communities?, What have the oil producing communities in the Niger Delta done wrong in this administration to deserve these injustices? and why is the government always bent on frustrating the interest of the oil bearing communities?

“The only probable answer is that there is a deliberate attempt to keep the oil-bearing communities perpetually impoverished and underdeveloped, which is clearly against the objectives of the Establishment Act of the NDDC that was established by the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo-led federal government, a result of the bloody Ijaw struggle in the Niger Delta.

“It is glaringly deliberate as same injustice in Ondo, Edo, and almost all the States for a Commission that was specifically created for only oil producing communities”, the statement said.

It, however, announced plans to commence the mobilization of representatives of oil producing communities for mass actions against the federal government, to resist what it has identified as a deliberate plot to continue the marginalization of the communities.

“Therefore, since oil producing communities have a commonwealth and common agony, we enjoin all oil producing communities, mostly in Delta State, to rise up against these injustices by sending leaders and representatives to attend an upcoming meeting, slated for the end of January in Warri, Delta State, to kick-start a series of drastic measures in a language that the federal government understands, as we are left with no choice at this point than to fully mobilize ourselves, irrespective of tribe, to take a legitimate, but decisive line of action to stop the injustice as quickly as possible.

“Letters and bulletins will be distributed to communities for urgent meetings to address core issues of NDDC and the 13% Derivation Funds the oil producing communities are denied of”, the statement said.