By IGBONIKO ODUMA

The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) said on Tuesday that it would mobilise Ijaw youths to occupy the National Assembly over moves to include Lagos, Bauchi and Ogun as new oil-producing states in the Niger Delta Development Commission through a bill for an act to amend the NDDC Act.

The group also cautioned that the bill sponsored by Senator Solomon Adeola of Lagos West, which passed second reading during plenary at the Senate last week Wednesday, was capable of further weakening the existing fragile peace in the region.

The IYC in a statement issued in Yenagoa by its spokesman, Ebilade Ekerefe, on Tuesday, described the bill as provocative, subversive and a deliberate plot to infiltrate the Niger Delta with non-contiguous states.

Ekerefe urged Ijaw youths to be on the alert for operation ‘Occupy National Assembly’ to resist the passage of the obnoxious bill.

He said, “We want to also put on notice the Nigerian security apparatus and the political leaders that the peace the present administration is enjoying today is fast becoming elusive due to the continued provocative steps taking by this Federal Government against our region, if it’s not addressed quickly.

“We, the IYC, on our part after due consultation, will be calling on the various cells of the Ijaw Youth Council, especially in Northern Nigeria, to prepare their minds to occupy the National Assembly to resist these myopic interlopers from the South-West anytime this obnoxious bill will be discussed on the floor of the Senate.”

Ekerefe called on Government Ekpemupolo alias Tompolo, Ebikabowei Victor-Ben aka Boyloaf, King Ateke Tom, Bibopere Ajube also known as Shoot-at-Sight and other former militant leaders in the region to speak out against the bill and its intent.

He said the council was no longer be comfortable with their continued silence on the neglect and lack of development of the region, non-reconstitution of the NDDC Board, alleged mass purge of Niger Delta indigenes from the NNPC and the region’s exclusion from the planned rehabilitation of roads by the corporation, among other issues.

“Your silence has made “interlopers” to add insult upon injury and call for the merging of what may later remain of the NDDC after it is merged with the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and taken to Abuja for the final burial. Niger Delta will now become empty and begging for carcass,”he stated.

However, the IYC thanked the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege and other Niger Delta Senators such as George Sekibo and Matthew Urhogide, for vehemently opposing the bill.

Ekerefe describe their action as bold and commendable, saying it showed that there are still men of honour from the Niger Delta who can brush aside party loyalty and rise up in defence of their people’s territories.

He also reminded the sponsor of the bill, Solomon Adeola, that the NDDC was created specially as an interventionist agency to tackle the development challenges of the Niger Delta, which had suffered monumental environmental pollution as a result of several years of oil exploration.

While warning that the amendment move was dangerous, Ekerefe said:

“Secondly, the proposed bill for the inclusion of these strange bedfellows to the NDDC goes to confirm our repeated positions that the Niger Delta region has become “a Toy” to be played with by politicians in Abuja and the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“But we must let these politicians and their anti-Niger Delta elements know that the “Toy” is a dangerous one that will explode in their hands if they don’t stop the deliberate provocation of the people (of the region).” (Daily Independent)

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