No substitute for restructuring, Niger Delta elders, group insist

The Coordinator, Niger Delta Elders and Leaders Forum, and member of the Niger Delta Dialogue Group, Chief Mike Loyibo, has insisted that for Nigerians to coexist in peace and unity there is no substitute for restructuring the country.

Loyibo, who spoke in an interview on Wednesday, therefore, urged the Federal Government to give all the ethnic nationalities the opportunity to discuss the purpose and essence of their existence.

The Niger Delta leader said, ‘’There is no substitute to restructuring of this country therefore, the government at the centre should give all the ethnic nationalities the opportunity to discuss the purpose of our existence.

‘’We have given so much as Niger Delta people and we need to be given much as well. I believe in restructuring and the people I represent believe in restructuring and we are pushing for it and very soon, we will get there.”

Loyibo, who advocated fiscal federalism, said the Niger Delta people needed a total control of their resources.

He said anything short of that (resource control) would not be accepted, noting that the genuine agitations would still be there over and over until the Federal Government allowed the region to manage its resources.

Loyibo added, “But we are also mindful of the fact that the current Federal Government headed by a corrupt-free President Muhammadu Buhari is putting in the best that we have never seen before to address the age-long issues of the Niger Delta.

“The Niger Delta problem is not caused by the Muhammadu Buhari’s administration; it has been there since 1958.

‘’What we are simply saying is give the 13 per cent derivation to the host communities directly and allow them to control their resources and pay taxes as was the case with cocoa and and groundnuts, then there would be peace in the Niger Delta.’’

Meanwhile, concerned ex-Niger Delta militants and former beneficiaries of the Presidential Amnesty Programme have urged the Federal Government to probe N541bn expended on the programme in the past eight years.

The ex-militants, under the auspices of Transparency and Accountability Movement in Niger Delta claimed that in spite of the funds, the scheme from the outset failed to achieve its promises to beneficiaries.

The ex-militants’ group in a statement by its Chairman, Lord Onipa, and its Secretary, Nengi Buna, demanded publication of the list of camps of the delegates that escalated the number of beneficiaries to 30,000.

They claimed that after eight years, the PAP had not been able to keep its promises of providing accommodation, vehicles, money to start a new life and other provisions initially made for ex-militants.

They said, “We also frown on the situation whereby stipends/allowances to delegates in schools and other training programmes are owed in arrears from five to six months. These are the issues worrying us as a group in the region.

“The amnesty programme has failed to fulfill appreciable percentage of the agreed conditions to ex-agitators. We wish to put it on record that the Federal Government has so far spent over N541bn on the programme in the past eight years.

“We wonder whether the amnesty programme is properly coordinated or it is designed to benefit some Federal Government agencies or Nigerian security agencies and those at the helm of affairs of the programme.

“We are demanding that the Amnesty Office should bring out all the names of delegates and when and where they were trained.

“It is also our conviction that the sum of N541bn spent on the programme is a fraud. We hereby call on the Federal Government to set up an investigative panel to unravel the secrets behind this colossal waste of money without any meaningful achievements.

“We also demand that the Federal Government publish each camp list of delegates who embraced the programme that bring the total number to 30,000 as being claimed by the Amnesty Office.”