Defuse Your Dynamites, Let Peace Reign, ANEEJ Tells Niger Delta Avengers

By Alltimepost.com

Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) has called on the Niger Delta Avengers and all other militant groups to defuse their dynamites, sheathe their swords and let peace reign in Nigeria.

The organization in a statement signed by its Executive Director Rev. David Ugolor on Monday bemoaned the recent blow- up of the Chevron Valve Platform in Delta State by the Niger Delta Avengers group, saying it has come up at a time when the recent wounds inflicted on Nigeria by Boko Haram and suspected Herdsmen are yet to heal.

The Niger Delta Avengers had claimed that Niger Deltans were getting killed by security operatives escorting oil tankers from the South.

Ugolor said ANEEJ condemns in unequivocal terms these killings being carried out in the Niger Delta and calls on the Federal government to address the sundry incidences before they escalate.

“Our problems in the Niger Delta and indeed Nigeria cannot always be solved with a resort to arms and a resolve to cripple the Nigerian economy,” he said.

“If there are infractions being perpetrated by one section of the country on the other, we believe that the reasonable thing to do would be to interrogate the system via superior arguments and policy suggestions against such infractions rather than taking the laws in our hands,” Ugolor added.

Blowing up pipelines which carry crude to the Warri and Kaduna refineries, he posited, may not be the best option for Nigeria at a time when Nigerians are already in the throes of power outages, harsh economic conditions occasioned by the fall of oil prices worldwide and a weak naira.

“ANEEJ is concerned that with an Amnesty program and Niger Delta Institutions in place to assuage frayed nerves over the injustices perpetrated on the Niger Delta by multinationals in collusion with government officials, together with the precarious condition of the Nigerian economy, what Nigeria needs is that all hands, heads and minds must be on deck to haul Nigeria from the precipice rather than a return to fisticuffs and the creeks to blow up pipelines.”

He urged President Buhari to develop a comprehensive civic engagement with the Niger Delta people and also provide a transparent roadmap on how to deal with the environmental problems caused by several decades of oil exploration by Multinational Oil Companies.

He said the lack of jobs among the youth in the region also requires urgent attention through a creative policy that will provide opportunities for both public and private sectors to work together.

Rev. Ugolor stated that there should be rapid implementation of the 2016 Fiscal Budget to enable NDDC and the Ministry of Niger Delta to carry out quick development intervention that will address some of the problems: Poor road network, pollution of farm lands and unemployment among the Niger Delta Youths.

“We strongly reject the option of using violence as a tool of attracting government attention which in the long run never help the very poor they claim to fight for rather it sustain systemic corruption and looting of public resources.”

He urged the Federal Government to step up its intelligence gathering capacity and use modern security strategy to deal with Niger Delta problem “rather that resorting to nicked violence against the region that will only enrich individual security entrepreneurs.”

The FG should scale up the Ogoni Clean Up program to demonstrate genuine commitment to tackling the environmental problems in the region, Ugolor said.