N/Delta dialogue: Beware of Niger Delta merchants, Ikimi warns FG

EXECUTIVE director of the Centre for the Vulnerable and the Underprivileged (CENTREP), Oghenejabor Ikimi, has warned the Federal Government to be wary of political jobbers he tagged “Niger Delta merchants” in the course of dialoguing with people of the region.

The human rights lawyer gave the warning in a statement he signed and made available to journalists on Monday in Warri, Delta State.

Ikimi discreetly identified merchants in Niger Delta region, differentiating them from genuine and the real Niger Deltans whose lots are eternal squalor, penury, oppression, neglect, privation and lack of basic social amenities such as potable water, good shelter and other basics of life in the deep creeks of the region.

While relishing the fact-finding visit of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to the state last week, Ikimi asserted that solutions to the Niger Delta question do not lie in militancy or violence, but genuine dialogue “among leaders of ethnic nationalities within the region on the one hand and the Federal Government on the other hand.”

According to him, the FG must understand that there is a Niger Delta existing within the Niger Delta region and this includes “remote creeks of the Niger Delta where the basic necessities of life are totally absent.”

He called on the FG to find solutions that’ll directly and positively impact the lives of natives of the remotest parts of the creeks who have been short changed by their political leaders for so long.

“We make bold to state that in the geographically located Niger Delta, there is a Niger Delta within the Niger Delta region; these consist of remote creeks of the Niger Delta where the basic necessities of life are totally absent.

We make bold to say that in the remote creeks of the Niger Delta region, persons living therein live on bamboo houses erected on water, which they defecate on, and which is their source of drinking and bathing water.

In the Niger Delta creeks, there are no hospitals, schools, electricity and pipe borne water etc.

For instance, a sick person resident in the Ojobo creeks would have to board a speed boat from Ojobo to Warri to receive medical attention at the Central Hospital, Warri.

The above journey would take nothing less than five hours to approach Warri from Ojobo.

That is the scenario of the plight of the people living in the creeks.

We note with total dismay the fact that many of the persons parading themselves as leaders of the Niger Delta region during the visit of the Vice President, Mr Yemi Osinbajo actually live in big cities of Warri, Yenagoa, Port-Harcourt, Lagos and Abuja, and not in the creeks of the Niger Delta and as such do not feel the pains of the People living in the creeks.

Some had served in interventionist bodies like DESOPADEC, yet they could not positively affect the lives of the people living in the Creeks in Delta State.

Again some had served in successive governments in Delta State who within May 29, 1999 till date had received trillions of Naira in derivation funds meant to develop the Niger Delta but same remains massively under developed courtesy of these Niger Delta “merchants” who have reaped millions and billions of naira from the volatile region.

These are the people, we refer to as Niger Delta “merchants” whom the Federal Government must avoid like a plague as they masquerade themselves as leaders, but whereas are scammers waiting to reap from where they have not sown.

The Federal Government must beware of this Niger Delta “merchants” pretending to be the leaders of the people of the Niger Delta whereas are sly locks benefiting from the violence and militancy in the Niger Delta,” Ikimi warned.

He enjoined Professor Osinbajo to embark on more of such fact finding visits with authentic representatives of persons from the creeks.