Elders, stakeholders and a coalition of socio-political and professional groups in the Niger Delta have begun moves to sensitize and galvanize the electorate in the region on the choice of a presidential candidate for the 2023 election.

This followed a series of consultations at various levels across the South-South, leading to a resolution that the Niger Delta had been bleeding since the inception of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and was in dire straits.

The elders, stakeholders and professionals had coalesced into Alliance for Rescue of the Niger Delta Region, ARNDR, with the objective of safeguarding and promoting the interest of the region in the February 2023 presidential polls.

In a statement, yesterday, by spokesperson of the coalition, James Komobila, the group explained that its stance against the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, resulted from the brazen acts of disdain and deprivation perpetrated against the Niger Delta people in the over seven years of the party’s administration at the national level. It noted that while landmark interventions for peace and development in the region such as the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB and the 1999 constitutional provision of 13 percent derivation from natural resources were all initiated, established and implemented when the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was in power at the centre, the APC under President Buhari had deliberately taken steps to undermine them. (Vanguard)