Elder statesmen from the Niger Delta region have reacted to Senate’s rejection of restructuring by calling for Nigeria’s break up.
According to them, their continued support for a united Nigeria is hinged on the immediate restructuring of the country.
In an emphatic declaration on Monday in Abuja, the leaders led by First Republic Minister of Information, Chief Edwin Clark, under the aegis of the Pan Niger Delta forum (PANDEF), stated: “No restructuring, no Nigeria.”
They also threatened to withdraw from negotiations with the Federal Government, if it fails to implement their 16-point agenda, which they had presented to President Muhammadu Buhari some months ago.
After a meeting in Abuja yesterday, PANDEF accused the government of avoiding
dialogue with its members after it had persuaded the youths in the region to halt all forms of violence in return for dialogue with the Federal Government to address all the issues that forced them to attack oil and other public installations in the zone.
PANDEF regretted that since November 1, 2016, when it presented its charter of demands to President Buhari, the government has frustrated all efforts to dialogue with them, adding that their patience has been exhausted.
The elder statesman stated that they would no longer push for any form of dialogue with the government at the expiration of their November 1 ultimatum.
After the deadline, the Niger Delta elders disclosed, they would rather refer the government to the region’s youths who have vowed to fight for their right, lamenting that the youths had continuously seen them as betraying their cause since they sued for peace to pursue dialogue with the Presidency.
In a statement issued at the end of the meeting, PANDEF condemned the National Assembly’s rejection of devolution of power and restructuring, stating that with the prevailing situation in the country, it is either the government agrees to restructuring or there will be no Nigeria.
Clark said: “Restructuring has become a pain in the ears of a few champions of wicked hegemony. All we are saying is let us go back to the negotiated 1960 Independence Constitution on which the 1963 Republican Constitution was moulded.
“Anything else is more obnoxious and totally unacceptable to the entire Southern and Middle Belt areas of Nigeria, as well as the growing number of well-meaning Nigeria in the North. All we are saying is “No restructuring, no Nigeria.”
At a separate press briefing, Clark regretted that the government had made the Niger Delta elders to look like brazen liars before their youths.
Clark claimed that as a result of his efforts to ensure dialogue, he had received several messages from the youths calling on the Niger Delta elders to leave them to fight their cause since PANDEF had failed in its task to dialogue on their behalf with the government.
He said: “The Niger Delta as created by God is a very difficult area as it is surrounded by swamps and water. The same God that created us in that difficult area made it easy for us to hold the economy of the nation with water and oil.
“Since 1956, when oil was discovered in Niger Delta, we have been the pillar of the Nigerian economy, even though we have severely suffered from that position.
“By the provision of the 1963 Constitution, which described Nigeria as practicing fiscal federalism, the about 50 per cent of whatever was produced in a region went to the development of the region.
“Before Independence, cocoa was there, groundnut was making the pyramids, palm produce helped each region to develop at its own pace. Why is it now that what belongs to us, we are not allowed to benefit from it?
“You come to my house to take the oil and give me handout, and you want me to say thank you. So, when some people brand our people militants, terrorists, or say we are causing trouble, I laugh at them.
“This is not the Nigeria our founding fathers built. When the youths decided in 2015 under the Niger Delta Avengers to begin the vandalism of oil pipelines, and nothing was done, no negotiation, the production of oil went down. At a point, we stepped in and that led to the founding of the Niger Delta Forum.
“On the 19th of August, we had a negotiated arrangement with the youths and they stopped vandalism of the pipeline, and sent us to go and negotiate for them with the Federal Government,” he stressed.
Clark recalled that PANDEF was granted audience by President Buhari on November 1, last year. The delegation of 100 elders and
