Ijaw Youths wants Buhari to approve $1b to develop Niger Delta region
*Raising eye-brow anytime government acts on solving other region’s problem is unpatriotic – Concerned Citizens
*Say, ‘You already have your fair sharing, talk to your leaders’
The Ijaw National Youth Congress (IYC) Worldwide has reportedly urged President Muhammadu Buhari to approve the release of $1 billion special fund for the development of the Niger Delta region.
The request followed the reported approval of same amount by President Buhari to combat the Boko Haram insurgents.
Barrister Roland Pereotubo Oweilaemi, IYC President, told Sunday Independent at the weekend that for the President to approve such amount without recourse to the National Assembly, means that the government could do so for the Niger Delta developmental plan.
Oweilaemi said: “If the executive arm can on its own volition approve such amount of money to prosecute the Boko Haram war when the sect has been supposedly defeated, then we see no reason why Niger Delta region should not be getting the lion share of the slush funds.
“There is no justification for the release of such funds to combat Boko Haram sects who the government has declared being defeated.
“Though no sacrifice is too much in securing lives and property in the country, our concern is the use of $1 billion to fight the terrorists the FG has once celebrated to have been defeated. Is there anything that the FG is not telling Nigerians?”
The statement credited to the Ijaw Youth leader has generated reaction of a group of Concerned Citizens, who wonders whether the youths are talking for the lawmakers or are merely seeing through line other normal citizens see the approved $1 billion or that they were just being the ethnic jingoists who would spark up at every effort made by the government to save people of region other than theirs from calamity of insecurity.
Speaking for the Concerned Citizens, Doyin Fusika said, “On behalf of the group of Concerned Citizens that I represent, I want to say to the Ijaw Youth leader and his members to watch the way to contribute to national discourse because they should know that it is unpatriotic to do so. This is not the first time they are saying things like this especially when such approval is for solving a problem in the North of the country but this is the first time we are reacting to it because it is important to caution one another when we are being unreasonable.
“Are you telling us that your region and people upon whom billions of dollars have been sunk are still being at disadvantage of government attention in this country? If that is why you are saying this, then come and tell us about the NDDC, Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, 13 percent derivation, royalties that accrue to you and the general Federal allocations that go to each state of the Federation and which states of your region have always had their fair shares. If you feel that you have been at disadvantage and that is why you think you should utter the kind of statement that has been published in the newspaper that we all read, then, you should blame yourselves as Ijaw Youths for failing to take your regional leaders to account over what they used those huge shares of the payback and economic benefits that have accrued to you from the Federation of Nigeria.
“It is imperative you begin to stay clear of this kind of thing even at the prompt of any mischievous pressman. Even if that is what you are expected to say to the man who interviewed you or want you to react to the presidential approval of the $1 billion to fight Boko Haram, you reserve your right to be influenced by self-confidence in all the things that the government, particularly Buhari’s government, has done for you, which your own brother in power as President never thought of doing for you. So, let us stop doing things which will continue to heat our already heated polity because it will pay nobody. That is our position,” he said.
