The Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) Worldwide has kicked against the decision of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to scrap the Niger Delta Ministry describing it as unacceptable.
The IYC appealed to the President to rescind his decision in the overall interest of the development of the region and its peculiar needs and challenges.
The IYC in a statement signed in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Wednesday by its Secretary-General, Maobuye Nangi Obu, said instead of removing existing interventionist structures designed to develop the region, Niger Delta should be treated as a special area in the country that deserved more programmes, projects, ministries and interventionist agencies.
Obu said even if the ministry’s functions were found to be overlapping with other existing agencies, the Federal Government should have reformed and refocused the ministry to tackle specific challenges in the region instead of scrapping it.
He said: “There is no justification whatsoever to scrap any existing structure designed for Niger Delta development. If any interventionist structure is found wanting, we expect the federal government to reform and refocus it to tackle specific needs of our region.
“Our region has always been in a disadvantaged position being the area with the most difficult terrain that has been consistently vandalized and messed up through oil exploitation and exploration to provide resources and revenue used to develop other regions.
“Therefore, the Niger Delta must be treated as a special territory that demands multiplicity of special interventions from the Federal Government. We expect President Tinubu, who understands our challenges, to know better than endorsing the scrapping of the Niger Delta Ministry.
“We expect President Tinubu to create more interventionist programmes, projects and ministries to solve myriads of problems facing the Niger Delta and hindering its development. The IYC is not happy that the President has done otherwise and we are urging him to bring back the ministry and saddle it with a special assignment”.
Obu said the IYC also observed a worrying trend of desperation to either strip the Niger Delta of its special status or bring other regions, which has no special needs at par with the region.
For instance he said it was disturbing why all of a sudden the National Assembly and the Presidency had created development agencies in the mode of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for other regions.
He, however, commended the Senate and some senators from the Niger Delta like former Governor of Bayelsa State and Senator Seriake Dickson for pushing for the creation of the South-South Development Commission distinct from the NDDC.
“We understand that the South-South Development Commission Bill has been passed by the Senate and we are expecting President Tinubu to swiftly sign it into law to close the looming developmental gap and marginalization occasioned by the creation of similar commissions in other regions”, he said.