Posted by By Sola Adebayo, Warri on
Niger Delta youths under the aegis of Niger Delta Youth Council, on Thursday asked the Vice-President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, to resign his position, citing poor handling of the protracted crises rocking the region as the reason for their call.
Niger Delta youths under the aegis of Niger Delta Youth Council, on Thursday asked the Vice-President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, to resign his position, citing poor handling of the protracted crises rocking the region as the reason for their call.
The body said the region had benefited nothing from the occupation of the exalted office by Jonathan for over one year.
The National President of NDYC, Mr. Donatus Ebisin, in an interview with our correspondent in Warri, Delta State, described the seven-point agenda of President Umaru Yar'Adua as it affected the Niger Delta as a ruse.
Ebisin said Jonathan had failed to attract development to the region despite his status as the nation's second most powerful citizen, adding that Yar'Adua and Jonathan were merely deceiving the people of the region.
He said, 'The Yar'Adua/Jonathan government is not sincere, it has just been rigmaroling in the past one year. The so-called seven-point agenda is deceptive. It is obvious that this government has no plan for the Niger Delta in particular or for the country as a whole.
'Jonathan for instance has failed his people as there is nothing on the ground in the region to show that the nation's number two citizen is from the area."
The Ijaw Youth Council, the umbrella body for the youth of Ijaw ethnic nationality, at a news conference in Benin, the capital of Edo State on Sunday, also asked Jonathan to quit over his alleged failure to use his position in the government to attract patronage to the region.
In a related development, the Nigeria Labour Congress said it had been following with concern the lingering controversy over the conduct of the proposed Niger Delta Summit, particularly the appointment of Prof. Ibrahim Gambari as chairman of the summit
's steering committee, and urged the FG to reconsider its position.
Meanwhile, a civil society activist, Mr. George-Hill Anthony, on Thursday urged the Federal Government to implement previous recommendations on the Niger Delta instead of initiating a new peace summit.
Anthony told the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja that the planned peace summit of the administration was a duplication of effort.
President Umaru Yar'Adua recently appointed a committee headed by the UN Under-Secretary-General, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, to organise a summit on how to resolve restiveness in the oil-rich region.
In the same vein, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Luka Yusuf, has urged elders of the Niger Delta to call their children to order for peace to reign in the area.
Yusuf, who was fielding questions from newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday, said every family should be involved in the efforts to return peace to the region.
's steering committee