George Onah
20 November 2008
The National Youth Council of Nigeria, Bonny Chapter, yesterday, dragged the Bonny Amanyanabo-in-council to the Rivers State Truth and Reconciliation Commission, over the Bonny crisis, following which the chiefs and elders have asked for an out-of-the-commission settlement.
Although the Justice Kayode Eso-led commission granted the request of the elders, it, however, told the group that the commission would fold up its public sitting at the end of the week and would want to know what becomes of the settlement plan if it fails or succeeds.
Responding, counsel to the Bonny elders Opuada Willie Pepple told Eso that a Memorandum of Understanding would be put in place within 48 hours of the settlement and made available to the commission on Friday November 21, before it winds up.
The youths had requested, in their memorandum, the chiefs, elders and some individuals to narrate to the commission the various roles played in the complexities that degenerated into the crises, which claimed lives and property in Bonny Island.
Chairman of the National Youth Council of Nigeria Bonny Chapter Mr Adonis Pepple, had stated, "We want to know what we have done so badly that those we call leaders hate us so much as to exchange our rights and welfare for a plate of red-stew."
They short-change us and even sell employment to the highest bidder. We want to know why our rivers are polluted by oil and gas operators and our leaders appear complacent over our plight and payments as compensation for fishermen don't get to them
We also want to know why our youths were armed, used and abandoned and left to criminality and militancy to unleash hell on the society. We hope the commission shall give us the answers to these questions and more".
Pepple who begged Eso to caution those threatening his life so that there could be amicable settled said "the youth council embraced this process in accordance with the intentions of the Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi to return peace to the nooks and crannies of Rivers State.
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