The Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, has warned that the entire, “Niger Delta region will be engulfed in flames of discord” if the tenure of the present Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Board members are extended.
IYC issued the warning while insisting that other states should be appointed into the NDDC board at the expiration of the current one.
The group stressed that any move to extend the tenure of the present Board members in the Commission may “spark off inter state rivalry.”
In a statement signed by its President, Oweilaemi Pereotubo, and sent to DAILY POST, IYC vowed to resist with “all vigour, any attempt to elongate the Nsima Ekere led-NDDC Board.”
The statement reads, “The attention of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Worldwide has been drawn to a rumour currently trending in the media that the current NDDC Board members are planning to extend their tenure which ought to have expired in December 2017.
“We do not want to believe that the news trending has any atom of truth because such move is against all known conventional practices in the Commission.
“It is statutory that the current Board members are only completing the tenure of the last Board members who were dissolved by President Buhari on assumption of office. The tenure of the present Board members will end in December this year.
“The offices of the Board is rotational among the nine Oil producing States. The plurality of the States in the Niger Delta cannot make it tenable for a state to occupy one office twice. In the history of the Commission since it was established, no Board member has occupied his office twice. It cannot be now that such a thing will be allowed to happen.
“Any move to extend the tenure of the present Board members in the Commission may spark off inter state rivalry. It is the turn of other State, not Akwa-Ibom to produce the next Managing Director after the expiration of the tenure of this present Board in December this year.
“No State should be denied of its right to occupy the offices assigned to it by the NDDC Act. Those making such dangerous move should be wary of their actions.
“President Buhari should not be cajoled into doing the biddings of those self-seeking individuals. The entire Niger Delta region will be engulfed in flames of discord if the tenure of the present Board members are extended.
“All the States in the region have qualified APC stalwarts to be appointed in the various offices. Let the offices in the Board be continued to rotate among the States for a single tenure which has been the known conventional practices. IYC will resist with all vigour, any attempt to elongate the Nsima Ekere led-NDDC Board. Let the usual conventional practices takes precedent.”
