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President of Nigeria, Umaru Yar'Adua, has challenged Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan over the development of Niger Delta region. Minister of Special Duties, Goddey Orubebe, who represented Vice President Jonathan during the first anniversary and launch of maiden almanac of Ijaw Women Leadership Forum stressed that Yar'Adua was ready to develop Niger Delta region.
President of Nigeria, Umaru Yar'Adua, has challenged Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan over the development of Niger Delta region. Minister of Special Duties, Goddey Orubebe, who represented Vice President Jonathan during the first anniversary and launch of maiden almanac of Ijaw Women Leadership Forum stressed that Yar'Adua was ready to develop Niger Delta region.
Yar'Adua, he said at Navy Barrack's Pitch Apapa, has told Jonathan to provide the blueprint and watch how he would transform the region.
While agreeing that the Federal Government has not done much in the region, Orubebe assured that rapid development would come after the blueprint has been provided through a schedule conference.
'We have not started the development. This government has not started development. We are in the planning stage. Immediately after the conference, we'd come out with a document and the next thing that will follow is development," Orubebe assured.
According to him, it is known all over the world that the region is underdeveloped but the people should give the Federal Government time to develop it, adding that what they had to do is to maintain peace, an action which he said would convince President Yar'Adua to develop the area.
Orubebe revealed that Yar'Adua has given Jonathan all the tools and backing to enable him come out with the document essential for the development of the region.
'He (Yar'Adua) has told your son, the vice president, to give him the blueprint and see whether he is not going to develop the Niger Delta," he said.
He enjoined the mothers to talk to their children to give peace a chance so that the region would move forward.
According to the President of Ijaw Women Leadership Forum, Mrs Elemah Sedenu, the forum was founded on February 23, 2007 by Comrade Joseph Evah, a social critic, following the death of six prominent Ijaw sons and daughters in a fatal road accident on their way back to Lagos from Delta State, where they had gone for a burial.
The body, Sedemu said, has reached out to stop the youths in the region who had chosen to engage in self-seeking criminal activities as against the region's benefit.
'We have appealed to some of these groups to lay down their arms and embrace dialogue. We are not buccaneers, pirates or armed robbers. There are better ways to seek redress than these self-seeking adventures of theirs," Sedenu said.
The purpose of the forum, its Grand Patron, Joseph Evah told Daily Sun, was to unite the whole of Niger Delta people, adding that the unity of Ijaw nation is a stepping stone for the unity and love that will exist in the region.
Over 200 women groups attended the ceremony which brought together thousands of Ijaw women from all walks of life.