NIGER DELTA: The Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) championed by Chief Edwin Clark has warned Northern youths against brewing crisis in the Niger Delta with unnecessary and misguided statements.
WHAT WE KNOW
A Niger Delta elder and former minister of communication in Nigeria, Chief Edwin Clark and his PANDEF organization has warned youths from northern Nigerian against using the pipeline security contract as a cover for brewing crisis in the Niger Delta
PANDEF issued the warning barely 48 hours after a coalition of Northern youths, under the aegis of Amalgamated Arewa Youth Groups (AAYGs) called for the termination of the renewed pipeline surveillance contract awarded to Government Ekpemupolo (popularly known as Tompolo)
The Arewa youths demanded for the cancelation of the contract awarded to Tompolo who is a “repentant” Niger Delta militant leader in a protest at the headquarters of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in Abuja.
PANDEF, in a statement issued via Ken Robinson, its National Publicity Secretary in Abuja on Wednesday, warned that the actions of the AAYGs was capable of sparking severe consequences in the Niger Delta region.
NOTABLE QUOTE
Robinson in the statement said:
“PANDEF cautions that the reported threat by the so-called Amalgamated Arewa Youth Groups to paralyse activities at NNPC headquarters, if the said contract awarded to Government Ekpemupolo was not revoked is not only absurd and delusional but capable of sparking severe consequences in the Niger Delta region.”
“We are sending a serious warning to those misguided Arewa youths and their sponsors. Let it be known to them that the Niger Delta people will not tolerate such absurdity.”
“PANDEF advises the Federal Government and the management of the titular NNPC Limited, to ignore the shenanigans of the purported Arewa youth groups. The Niger Delta should not be provoked any further!”
“Tompolo, and indeed any other capable son or daughter of the Niger Delta, for that matter, has the right to be awarded any contract by, any agency or company, of the Federal Government, more so the NNPC, whose core operations are carried out mainly in the Niger Delta region.”
“Nigeria is reportedly losing billions of Naira daily through organised, outrageous crude theft by criminals and corrupt officials; it, thus, won’t be inapposite to infer that the so-called Amalgamated Arewa Youth Groups were mobilised by the ‘organised oil thieves’ to impede the renewed efforts of NNPC limited, to mitigate the stealing of our crude oil, and also, safeguard the nation’s oil and gas assets.”
NEWS ANALYSIS
The economic sabotage in the Niger Delta is an organized crime, which has brought Nigeria`s economy to its knees, especially after several governments have little or nothing to pivot the nation`s economy from oil.
The dependency of the economy on oil have also created cabals whose economic dependency on the black gold is more dare and desperate than even that of the nation`s economy.
Another look is at the operations of the oil majors whose business activities in the Niger Delta have led to environmental degradation and destruction of the economic life of the host communities.
These same environmental hazards have also led to very serious health issues to the people of the host communities on whose lands the oil is mined by these foreign oil companies, who make their billions in total disregard of international practices in the field.
The direct consequence of this agitation from the host communities who have risen in defense of their fundamental right to life to protest against these destructive business activities of these oil companies.
Their agitation have led to vandalizing of pipelines by the Niger Delta militants who now seek for adequate compensations for the destructions and harms caused to the host communities by the oil companies who are in actual sense colluding with the federal government.
The federal government in turn awarded contracts to some of the agitators to provide security to the pipelines, an action that could be seen as paying the militants to stop their acts of vandalism.
In a way, this could be seen negatively by some critics, but that is only when you close your eyes to the actual issues that led to the contract in the first place. Vandalising of the pipelines would have been if the oil companies and the federal government have cared about the host communities.
In any case, however you look at it, there is no ground or moral justification for the northern youths to protest or even be heard speaking against the pipeline contract. They have no locus whatsoever.
Available records show that most of the mining contracts and oil wells are held by contractors of the northern origin, and by implication can be accused of contributing largely to the degradation of the region, from where they transfer billions to the north.
Clariform therefore thinks that rather than protest against the pipeline contract to Tompolo, the Arewa youths should be protesting against the reason and the circumstances that necessitated the contract in the first place.
