Posted by Niger Delta Youth Council
The Niger Delta Youth Council (NDYC) has threatened to shut down both the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the National assembly for not doing enough to protect the interest of the Niger Delta region in the N621.2 billion road projects to be undertaken across the country by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The National convener of the Council Comrade Jator in a statement on Sunday Morning said the council will resist marginalisation by President Muhammadu Buhari lead Federal government.
Jator noted that there are several roads in Niger/Delta, region that could be included. We have roads in Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta, Edo and other states of the Niger Delta, that should have been included in the project list.
“The inequality, injustice and inequity that characterised this project distribution give eloquent credence to allegations that Sylva and other ministers from our region do not have the interest of the Niger Delta at heart.”
As we speak, Sylva does not have a road to his Okpoma community in Brass Local Government Area of his state. The joint efforts between the Bayelsa State Government and the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) to take a road to Brass only ended in Nembe.
“The section between Nembe to Brass, the local government area of Sylva, would have been included in the NNPC project if Sylva had been alive to his duties as a minister.
According to him, the Minister of State for Petroleum action is a betrayal of trust and display of irresponsibility unbecoming of a minister in his capacity. We will continue to feel this way until he races down to the region to prove us wrong.
We will come out in our Numbers to protect our region and make sure justice is done, we shall shut down the NNPC, National Assembly and even the villa if nothing is done in the next 48hours. Jator Added.
“We are hereby asking Sylva to return to the region immediately and explain to us in a town hall meeting while he slumbered when others shared our commonwealth. We also use the opportunity to call on NNPC to adjust the project list in the interest of peace, justice and equity.”
The youths reminded President Buhari and the National assembly, that the NNPC owed its existence to the Niger Delta insisting that the corporation could not for the first time be undertaking such projects without paying adequate attention to, “a region it has almost rendered uninhabitable because doing so is, to say the least, provocative and a recipe for another violent conflict.”