2.2mpd: Inaugurate dialogue team now, PANDEF urges FG

The Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) has called on the Federal Government (FG) to, in line with its promise, inaugurate the dialogue team that midwife its 16-point agenda submitted last November.

This reasonable action will, among others, halt further fears of a resurgence of hostilities against oil and gas assets in the Niger Delta region by aggrieved militants, PANDEF has argued in a statement signed by Dr Alfred Mulade and made available to journalists in Warri, Delta State on Monday night.

“As we have said in our previous presentations, and as contained in PANDEF’s 16-Point Agenda, we urge the Federal Government to urgently set up the Dialogue Team to open Dialogue with PANDEF towards resolving the developmental challenges in the Niger Delta region, as contained in the 16 –Point Agenda, before it becomes unmanageable.

This will ensure the sustainable peace in the region where crude oil production has arisen to 2.2Million bpd (generating an income bracket of $110,000,000 calculated @ $50 per barrel, amounting to N34,650,000 @ the N315 per dollar), as against the downward slide of crude oil production to about 900,000 bpd during the heights of militant attacks on oil assets in the region,” the Niger Delta elders maintained.

The forum contended that the way forward for the country not to plunge into the precipice as it seems doing now, is for the FG to adopt the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference.

“PANDEF is convinced that the solution to the challenges that agitate us today are contained in the over 600 recommendations of the 2014 National Conference.

The wisdom of implementing the recommendations of that Conference cannot be over-emphasized,” the group noted.

Curiously, PANDEF “wish to reiterate and urge the Federal Government to convoke a meeting of the leaders of the six geopolitical zones of the country to discuss the current state of the nation, particularly as it affects the restructuring of the country.”

Meanwhile, the Edwin Clark-led forum has warned the agitators for Biafra Republic to steer clear of the Niger Delta, saying states in the region were not part of their dream republic.

It also called Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Exxo-Mobil, Agip and Chevron among others to relocate to the region as directed by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo during g his visit to Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, on March 2, 2017.

The group affirmed that the “socio-economic life of the people of the Niger Delta region, whose means of livelihood and ecosystem have been devastated, can now have a new lease of life.”