Posted by By Emma Amaize on
THE Ijaw have rejected the stakeholders' meeting on Niger Delta convened by President Olusegun Obasanjo on April 5. The Ijaw call it 'a jamboree conference and another gimmick by the Federal Government to frustrate the Ijaw people."
WARRI - THE Ijaw have rejected the stakeholders' meeting on Niger Delta convened by President Olusegun Obasanjo on April 5. The Ijaw call it 'a jamboree conference and another gimmick by the Federal Government to frustrate the Ijaw people."
Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark, who announced the position of his people in a statement yesterday, said the problem was an Ijaw problem and appealed to President Obasanjo to 'open dialogue with Ijaw leaders and youths to find a lasting solution to the Ijaw problem."
His words: 'The decision of the Federal Government to call the jamboree meeting conference has come to the Ijaw as a shock and is seen as another gimmick of the Federal Government to frustrate the Ijaw and not to take them seriously.
'Let it be known that even though Edo State and Cross River State are in the Niger Delta, there is no way the Niger Delta man in Auchi and the Niger Delta man in Ogoja will appreciate or understand the problem of the Ijaw man in Okerenkoko in Delta State. Let us be realistic and call a space a spade," he said.
President Obasanjo, according to his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Mrs. Oluremi Oyo, summoned the meeting of Leaders of Thought of the Niger Delta coastal states to deliberate on issues of engagement with the relevant groups in the region, dialogue, confidence building, employment creation and the re-building of the wholesome community spirit in the region.
Among those expected at the high-level meeting are traditional rulers, elected officials, community leaders, youth leaders and other relevant leaders and stakeholders within the community.
But giving reasons why the Ijaw would not be part of the meeting, Chief Clark said: 'From our past experience, we have discovered that such omnibus meetings and conferences have been hijacked by people who have no stake in the problems of Ijaw people. We have been labelled as trouble makers, war mongers, agitators, hostage takers, pirates, pipeline vandals, bunkerers and as a group of people with no focus or foresight but always causing problems for the Federal Government.
'This was clearly the case during the Kiaima Declaration crisis where Ijaw youths were killed, wounded and property destroyed. After the military invasion, we took our case to the Federal Government under the military administration of General Abdulsalami Abubakar. What did he do? He summoned a jamboree conference to Abuja where series of meetings were held at the Villa. The main object of the dialogue was lost because we never understood ourselves.
'The problems of the Ijaw can never and will never be solved at the jamboree conference like the one being proposed by the Federal Government to take place next Wednesday where all traditional rulers, youths and opinion leaders across the Niger-Delta are invited."
Chief Clark said with the final release of the total of 13 hostages, the Federal Government should enter into 'a dialogue, constructive and purposeful negotiation with the Ijaw, including the elders and youths. That is, serious discussion with the federal and state authorities if we are to avoid and prevent any such crisis.
'The whole world recognised the naked fact that the Ijaw people in whose area over 70 per cent of the oil and gas which sustain the economy of Nigeria is produced are the poorest and most neglected people in the whole of the federation. The question is now being asked: Why is it so? It is a well-known fact that all over the world, the oil producing communities are the wealthiest but in Nigeria, they are the poorest. The reason can only be given through dialogue, far from intimidation, coercion, manipulation by the government with the Ijaw including elders and youths," he said.