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Nigeria: Group Asks FG to Declare Niger Delta Disaster Zone
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Vanguard (Lagos)
3 July 2008
Posted to the web 4 July 2008
Samuel Oyadongha
THE Conference of Ethnic Nationalities in the Niger Delta has urged the federal government to declare the region a disaster area on the strength of the extreme deprivation of the people as well as the repealing of all obnoxious laws governing the nation oil industry, waterways, land ownership among others targeted at the natural resources of the region.
Stakeholders from the region who met recently in Yenagoa the Bayelsa State capital aside calling for the massive industrialization of the region so as to provide employment for the teeming army of unemployed youths and curbing restiveness also renewed their opposition to Prof Ibrahim Gambari being mandated as chairman of the Niger Delta Summit.
The conference called for a neutral international personality of repute such as Mr. Kofi Anan, former United Nations Secretary General or Mr. Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States of America.
It also reject as "unacceptable option, the militarization of the Niger Delta" as a result of what it described as "recent activities."
The conference, rather proposed "time tested procedures for apprehending those who violate the laws of the land.
It also lamented the sustained environmental degradation of the region, especially the flaring of gas which has the twin factor of constituting extreme health dangers and wastage of resources.
The conference which decried the secret trial of Henry Okah of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta also demanded that his trial should be stopped forthwith and be conducted in the open.
Participants also frowned at the electoral laws of 2006 stressing that it requires fundamental reform such that the process could effectively eliminate electoral malpractices so that a truly independent electoral commission that will enjoy the confidence of all stakeholders should be set up to conduct credible elections in the country.
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It further noted that majority of Nigerians residing in the Bakassi Peninsula now forced to relocate to the relocate to the Republic of Cameroon are Niger Deltans and therefore cannot be pulled out of their ancestral homes.
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