27062021 - Kaduna, Borno, Niger, Benue strruggle over 3 million IDP

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PAGE 18 —SUNDAY VANGUARD, JUNE 27, 2021 NDDC: Tension in N-Delta …as Akpabio’s timeline to Tompolo, others to inaugurate Board lapses this wk By Emma Amaize, Regional Editor, South-South WHEN ex-militant leader, High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, after a meeting with Minister of Niger –Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, who scurried to the creek of Delta, June 3, vacated his seven-day ultimatum issued, May 31, to the Federal Government to immediately constitute a substantive Board for the Niger-Delta Development Commission, NDDC, it was with the understanding that the much-awaited Board would be inaugurated by the end of this month (June), that is, three days away. Noticeably, Tompolo’s involvement and Akpabio’s subsequent meeting at Oporoza with leaders of Niger-Delta ethnic nationalities doused tension that had escalated in the region over the delay in inaugurating the NDDC Board, with militants prepared to strike at the expiration of the seven-day warning. My treaty with Akpabio —Tompolo Tompolo, in a statement after conferring with Akpabio, had stated: “The outcome of the meeting has been made known to the public by the Minister. “He promised profusely to start the process of the constitution and inauguration of the substantive Board of the NDDC immediately (from Friday, June 4, 2021), and that he should be allowed to drive the process to an end on or before the end of June 2021. “As it stands now, I have accepted the outcome of the meeting reluctantly. “It is pertinent to state at this juncture that I do not want anything to disrupt the relative peace we are enjoying in the region. “It was on this premise that I accepted •Akpabio the outcome of the meeting. “The ultimate goal in this issue is for the Minister to abide by the promise he has made to start the process of constituting the NDDC Board now. “Government shenanigans must be put away in this matter as constituting the NDDC Board is very dear to the heart of the people of the region”. A leader of one of the Niger ethnic nationalities that met with the minister had also said: “We told him (Akpabio) to go back and inaugurate the NDDC Board before the ultimatum expires, but he was pleading that he should be given June ending and, another breath, adding first week of July.” But, three days to the end of the month, improbability has beclouded the cutoff date of June ending which the stakeholders mutually agreed with the minister who promised to drive the process. Signal Akpabio passed the clue, Tuesday, June 22, approximately 18 days after his Oporoza consultation with stakeholders, that June 30 or first week of July were no longer practicable. Fielding questions from State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, he said the final report would be ready by the end of July and submitted afterward to President Muhammadu Buhari for implementation. Making no reference to June ending reciprocated understanding with Tompolo and other stakeholders, he said: “We have fast tracked the process of constituting the (NDDC) Board; but we insist that the most important thing is not just the development of the Niger Delta region but how to reposition NDDC to ensure optimal performance as against the practice in the past. “So, the forensic audit of NDDC is on course and it is progressing very well and I am happy with the progress made so far. “And I am very certain that by the end of July, which is just a month and a few weeks away, the final result will be given to the President for implementation. “And in terms of the composition of the Board of the NDDC, of course, we have fast tracked the process and the National Assembly will soon get the list. “But that is not as important as the From Buhari and Akpabio’s declarations, it is possible that the June ending deadline may be botched, but will the stakeholders and militants understand and exercise more patience? •Tompolo forensic audit which we are finally giving a deadline, which is July, that it will end.’’ He was hopeful that the new Board would use the recommendations of the forensic audit to reposition the commission and for effect. Akpabio’s words: “So, my going to creeks to meet the traditional rulers and ex-agitators was in the interest of not just the security of the region but also the peace of the region.” We’re not surprised —Elder Okon A concerned Niger-Delta leader, Elder Alphonsus Okon, told Sunday Vanguard “Akpabio has again tactically shifted the date of inauguration until after July and this is against the spirit of Oporoza meeting”. Okon went on: “He (Akpabio) talked about the list getting to the National Assembly soon, but we already have a substantive Board with former Edo deputy governor, Dr. Pius Odubu, as Chairman and Mr. Bernard Okumagba (Delta) as Managing Director. “Which list is he talking about? We all know that the National Assembly will proceed on recess in either the first or second week of July and the vacation is until end of September. “So, when is the list getting to the Senate? Is it when the lawmakers are on holiday? The next thing they will say at July ending is that the Federal Executive Council will deliberate on the forensic audit report and take decision before implementation, all these to further delay the inauguration of the Board?” Mr. President’s validation The minister seems not alone on his position, however, as Buhari, who met, Thursday, June 24, with the national executive of Ijaw Nation Congress, INC, led by Prof Benjamin Okaba, also restated that the Board would be inaugurated as soon as the forensic audit report was submitted and accepted. “Based on the mismanagement that had previously bedeviled the NDDC, a forensic audit was set up and the result is expected by the end of July, 2021”, the President told his visitors. “I want to assure you that as soon as the forensic audit report is submitted and accepted, the NDDC Board will be inaugurated”. Otuaro’s clear appraisal From Buhari and Akpabio’s declarations, it is possible that the June ending deadline may be botched, but will the stakeholders and militants understand and exercise more patience? While those used to the postponement of NDDC Board inauguration for close to two years would surmise that “it is the usual style” and some militant groups would be spoiling for action, Tompolo, despite the unlikelihood of his June windup deadline, may be guarded in sanctioning any attack. He had, in accepting the minister’s imploration for time after his seven-day ultimatum, stated, in his June 4 statement, that the ultimate issue was for Akpabio to abide by his promise to start the process of constituting the NDDC Board without much ado. Delta State Deputy Governor Kingsley Otuaro, who was at the June 3 meeting between Akpabio and Tompolo, had, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Press and Communication, Bulou Kosin, said: “Tompolo eventually rationalized that the Niger Delta Affairs Minister, Akpabio, who humbly came to Oporoza to state his case, would be practically constrained by the small space within the 7-day ultimatum. “Since Senator Akpabio promised to speedily complete the inauguration of the NDDC Board process he claimed to have already commenced, it was ideal to allow little space to Senator Akpabio and review implementation of the ultimatum, which will otherwise stall oil production, create possibly bloody clashes and foreclose the very inauguration agitated for”. Otuaro, in the open assembly between Akpabio and stakeholders, had posited: “We cannot explain why an institution as the NDDC, which is a product of an Act, is being run in flagrant abuse of the power establishing it on the guise of a forensic audit. “There must be a substantive board for goodness sake. The voice of the people should be listened to”.
Delta 2023: Why it is Isoko turn • Okowa should convene Consultative Forum By Frank Obru Egboro “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success” - Henry Ford “It is not great events that make great people, but great decisions” - Pastor Enoch A. Adeboye One is tempted to recall the words of Charles Dickens in one his classics, The Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us”. Yes we have everything before us as a state (Delta) and a people except political unity. Today we see those who point the way forward as pariahs once it is not in consonance with our interest just like the character Spurinna who warned Julius Caesar in the Shakespeare classics of impending danger which Caesar ignored to his own peril. This is the bane of our current crop of political actors and vociferous restive elders. According to Trevor Roper, prophets are unnecessary distractions in times of victory. There is so much rascality amongst our political class breeding traits that smack of irresponsibility and internecine conflicts. Our leaders must lead by example, eschew bitterness, ensure high sense of responsiveness and moderate their utterances and comments as we sail towards 2023. As some of them are spoiling for trouble they should remember the words of Benjamin Franklin that, “If a man can have half his wishes he will double his troubles”, and the advice of John Mason who said “no one should pray for rain if he will complain of the mud”. We have pretended over the years of our pyrrhic unity and the cracks are becoming obvious like a pregnant woman. The cracks appearing today have been there but we have refused to address them because of our ogogoro and agbata eeke political actors who have become our Achilles’ heels. The hocus-pocus festering in our political space from our political gladiators currently can be liken to a circus rehearsal which reveals lost-of-control, fear, frustration, confusion, intransigence and it reminds one of the words of former British PM Harold Wilson who said, “Alliance are held together by fear not by love”. In the present political harum-scarum, the neanderthals and kindergarten politicians in alliance with our voodoo political players are rationalizing the issues of equity, fairness and zoning coated in ethnicity displaying so much ignorance and naivety. This is not the time for macabre dance, buffoonery or political correctness and mendacious unjustifiable cuckoo medieval stone-age and self-serving arguments. According to John C. Maxwell, the stone-age didn’t end because people ran out of stones. It ended because people kept learning and improving. We must learn to extend a handshake across the Delta three senatorial zones, building bridges of oneness, friendship, Where is the place of Isoko in the political equation of Delta which has co-operated with every ethnic group? inclusiveness and commonality. Whether we accept it not we need each other; disunity and bickering over who gets what instead of engaging one another will destroy us. Imagine what we can accomplish if we don’t care who takes the credit according to Harry Truman. The time has come for a consultative forum, a round table conversation and sincere dialogue amongst the ethnic nationalities that make up Delta State to chart the way forward. Enough of the hullabaloo, waterfall noise and vituperations emanating from our people across all divides in Delta. One of our fellow tribes venomously spewing that 2023 will be a fight to the finish is political hara-kiri and it is unacceptable because no one holds the monopoly of violence; we always stoop to conquer and it takes “wisdom to understand wisdom for the music is nothing if the audience is deaf” according to Walter Lippmann (1899-1974). We must talk to ourselves, otherwise we may go in circles and thus making little progress like Israelites who covered a distance of 613km between Egypt (Kemet) and Israel (Canaan) for 40yrs at the rate of 43 metres a day, a distance a 6-year-old can run in less than five mimutes. Only Moses can explain this snail-speed waka waka! Governor Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa is the generalismo of Delta State today and his recent political opinion has become a barbiturate causing our political undertakers amnesia. In other words, the governor baring his mind on the ethos for future leadership has elicited wild reactions across various interest groups. So much as his views are deleterious to the interest of political bigot(s), the governor is entitled to his opinion as a stakeholder and also as the man in the saddle of leadership in the state. The power rotation principle so to speak in Delta is an accidental design of the PDP political family and not binding on other political parties like APC and this is the limitation of the PDP power structure, notwithstanding that they are the dominant party in the state. The fact that APC is a formidable threat, and hot on the trail of PDP, should be discomfiting enough for the PDP to put on •Okowa their thinking caps for a round table discourse. This is where I think the governor should take the driver’s seat to steer affairs by calling a stakeholders dialogue for a jaw jaw and the much talked about agreement or understanding as it were can be fully discussed and a common position taken for the progress of Delta and peaceful coexistence. Put differently, Okowa should realize that he is a beneficiary of zoning without prejudice to the events and horse trading at the PDP primary. The contentions at the PDP primary of 2015 notwithstanding, Okowa was duly elected by the three senatorial districts and now he is governor representing Delta North and why the foray into ethnic sentiments? Going forward, his recent utterances have become a template commentators are using to gauge the mode of political players and the thinking of the power vampires and extremists especially those within the corridors of power. The time has come for the governor to call a conference to calm frayed nerves and to address the ongoing mutual distrust, suspicion, anger, bitterness and ethnic disunity. Okowa cannot afford to leave behind a broken Delta for the sake of posterity. With the 2023 brouhaha and Okowa’s recent position which has ruffled feathers and thus sparking vexatious discourse on the streets, market space, mechanic workshops, churches, mosques, farms and among the ordinary people who have been neglected by a rapacious generation, the Isoko of Delta South have decided to join the conversation as critical stakeholders in the Delta project for 2023. And what is the subject of this conversation engaging everyone is all about if one may ask rhetorically? Yes, it is all about which senatorial zone is most suited to produce the governor come 2023. Delta North’s tenancy in Asaba Government House ends in 2023. For purposes of clarity, Delta is made up three senatorial districts namely Delta Central, Delta South and Delta North. According to the PDP political family as they are known, power should rotate between the three zones although not cast in iron with human uncertainties beginning from Central District with James Onanefe Ibori taking the seat first. Then it went to Delta South with Emmanuel Uduaghan taking the seat. It is now the turn of Delta North with Okowa taking the seat. Zoning is a hunky-dory as conceived and although not a written-agreed-concept, but a winning formula of peaceful coexistence that should be allowed to foster. And by Common Sense of brotherly unity, the rotation arrangement should begin again from the starting point with Delta Central taking a second dose of the Astra Zeneca vaccine since power struggle in Delta is assuming the status of Covid-19 so to speak. We are in uncertain times orchestrated by our voracious venal elites fanning the embers of disunity for self-aggrandizement and our unity is now being threatened because we have decided not to tell ourselves the truth. According to the Greek Dramatis and Philosopher Aescylus (525BC-465BC), “in war truth is the first casualty”. Politics is war in our clime as described by former President Obasanjo who saw politics as a do-ordie affair. It would have be more rational to begin zoning again from Delta Central where it originally began inadvertently by the PDP arrangement, but if the PDP, in its proclivity, decides to start the rotation from Delta South, as being speculated, then the power pizza should be given to Isoko as the most suitable and this position being canvassed by Isoko is non- negotiable. In other words, if the PDP has decided to jettison the old accidental sequence of rotation or transfer of the baton of power, and has decided to start from Delta South, then Isoko is most amenable to take the shot. WHY? In Delta South, Isoko is the most cheated and neglected. Their Itsekiri brothers have gotten their shot at Government House represented by Uduaghan for eight years. The Ijaws are presently Deputy Governor and holding sway at the Senate till 2023 as represented by Kingsley Otuaro and James Manager respectively. Where is the place of Isoko in the political equation of Delta which has co-operated with every ethnic group? The docility of the Isoko people should not be misconstrued for complacency and only engaged when necessary as an escritoire. According to Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent”. The governorship and Senate seats are synonymous with authority, and so it is the turn of Isoko and this stand is irrevocable and they are counting on their Urhobo brothers with whom they have close affinity in terms of language/culture to assist them in alliance with Delta North especially the Ndokwa people with whom the Isoko have related cordially over the years, and their amiable Ijaw and Itsekiri neighbours with whom they have special ties to realize this feat in 2023. The Isoko ethnic nationality also cannot wait till 2031 or any other date but 2023. The French Poet Victor Marie Hugo said, “You can resist an invading Army; you cannot resist an idea whose time has come”. Isoko wadoooo! Isoko tolopia!! •Egboro is President, Down 2 Earth Network (a nongovernmental initiative) and can be reached via down2earth100@yahoo.com or 08023303339 (sms only). SUNDAY VANGUARD, JUNE 27, 2021, PAGE 19 We’ve repositioned OSOPADEC for economic growth —Koledoye A cting Chairman of Ondo State Oil Producing Area Development Commission, OSOPADEC, Dr. Victor Koledoye, has said the commission was positively impacting the lives of the people. Koledoye spoke in Akure, Ondo State capital, while highlighting the achievements of the commission in the last couple of years. According to him, in spite of the recent economic crunch, the organisation has been able to bring to the doorsteps of people sustainable development and community based projects. He listed some of the projects embarked upon by OSOPADEC to include the construction of Aboto/ Atijere Road; Asphalt overlay from Igbokoda to Araromi; provision of water treatment and reticulation plants. The OSOPADEC boss added that the commission facilitated the employment of teachers to complement the efforts of SUBEB and TESCON, and, in collaboration with BEMORE, sponsors yearly 100-140 girls to participate in annual summer camp. BEMORE is one of the key pet projects of the First Lady of Ondo State aimed at empowering the girlchild within and outside the state. “As a commission, we have enjoyed a cordial relationship with the Ondo State Government and this relationship has led to the birth of various ongoing projects in the area”, Koledoye said.. “The governor is making good efforts in opening up the deep sea port and the free trade zone projects which will be of immense economic growth for the region and the state at large”. Why I joined Ayade to defect from PDP – Agara, Cross River APC chief •Says opposition party has no solution to insecurity By Emma Una N All Progressives Congress, APC, chieftain in Cross ARiver State, Chief Chris Agara, says the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, has not proffered effective alternative to the fight against insecurity outside releasing press statements criticising the Federal Government on insecurity in parts of the country. Agara, who defected to the APC on the heels of the defection of Governor Ben Ayade, told Sunday Vanguard on phone that if the PDP had credible solution to combating insecurity, they would have come forward with it. He also explained why he joined Ayade in dumping PDP. “We expected that the PDP would have come out with their own security arrangement which is better; it is one thing to say something and another to put forward a plan which is better”, he stated. According to him, he opted to go to the APC to join forces with those in the party to address the security challenges and other pressing issues in the country rather than finding faults in what the Federal Government is doing. He accused the PDP of operating a closed system in which new entrants cannot find space and that forecloses the chances of those seeking to contest election on its platform. “When you look at the PDP, people who are there are not ready to give space to aspiring people to express themselves and talk about representing the people or seek to be elected and that is not democracy”, Agara stated. Earlier during a rally at his Ntansele Ward, Ikom Local Government Area to announce his defection and support for Ayade, the towering political figure told the mammoth crowd that it became imperative for him to move from the PDP to the APC in the light of current political developments in the state and country at large. “My decision is orchestrated by the need to play my role in propelling the state towards the direction of development and a platform that is progress oriented which has been kick- started by the noble effort of our governor, “Agara stated. He said change is the only constant thing and anyone who does not embrace change stands the risk of being left behind. Marriage Administrators Institute Commends FG, Interior Ministry Institute of Marriage Administrators and Counselors of Nigeria has commended the Federal Government for updating the gazette on Judicial Notices.The gazette on judicial notices covering every local government in the country empowers Marriage Districts to conduct marriages under the Marriage Act, Cap M6, LFN, 2004 as amended.The Institute President, Pastor Oladele Emmanuel Temilade, in a statement in Abuja, said this has been the stand of the Institute since inception. The Federal Government , he said, should be commended for the update of the Judicial Notices in line with the Marriage Act.The Principal Registrar of Marriages Print and Deliver the Certificate of Marriages to the several Registrars of Marriages and the Ministers In - charge of Licensed Places of Public Worship for Celebration of Marriages nation - wide.This, he said, has put to rest the feud between the Ministry of Interior on one hand and the 774 Local Government Areas including the 6 FCT Areas Councils on the other hand for good. The Institute President said this is not the time for the Ministry of Interior to rest on its oars as much still needed to be addressed, to make the services of marriages under the Marriage Act socially seamless to all the users of the services and the review of the Marriage Act to reflect current realities. Temilade commended the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Shuaib Belgore , the Ministry’s Director, Citizenship and Business, Barr. (Mrs) Moremi Soyinka - Onilaja for obtaining the presidential approval gazetting the update of the judicial notices.
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27062021 - Kaduna, Borno, Niger, Benue strruggle over 3 million IDP

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