Festus Ahon
4 July 2008
As opposition continues to mount against the proposed Niger Delta submit, Chief Peter Wanogho has called on the Federal Government to organized a Sovereign National Conference, describing the summit as a ruse and diversionary.
Wanogho, a lawyer and civil right activities in a chat with our correspondent, said there was a need for Nigerians to determine the bases of their continuous existence as one nation, adding that the proposed parley was a summit "one too many".
He held that the summit was a plot by the Federal Government to divert attention from the real problems facing the region.
Wanogho said "what ever name given to the summit and whatever the calibre of persons who are to preside over it, the proposed summit is a ruse and one summit too many.
"It points to only one direction, that the Yar'Adua administration does not know the problems of the Niger Delta area and because they do not know the problem of the area, they have no focus."
"In a nut shell, the proposed Niger Delta summit is a diversionary summit so as to divert the minds of those who are suffering the ecological degradation in the Niger Delta from their suffering for a moment."
He explained that "the moment is the period the so called summit stays who in Nigeria does not know the problems of the Niger Delta."
He added that no summit is needed to unearth the Niger Delta problem as solutions do not come from. "We do not need any summit in the Niger Delta as the problem of the region is known to all and sundry," he stated.
Continuing, he pointed out that "what the region need, if they (FG) cannot at least ameliorate the problems of the Niger Delta is a sovereign national conference so that the six geo-political zone would sit in a round table and determine the basis of continuous existence as one nation."
Wanogho advocated the restructuring of the country into a confederation which each segment would determine its own development pace.
He called on "all meaning Niger Deltans to boycott the summit," saying any body from the area who attends the summit or summit memoranda to the summit is an enemy of the oil bearing region.
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