Group Tasks Buhari On Recovered Funds

A non-governmental organisation, Centre for Coastal Conflict Prevention (CCCP), has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to plough back the recently recovered looted funds to address the huge infrastructure and development deficit in the Niger Delta region.
Executive Director of the Port Harcourt-based organisation, Chief Diggs Flaming Akobo, made the call while exchanging views with The Tide in his office in Port Harcourt.
Akobo, who attributed the restiveness in the Niger Delta to the level of under development of the region in the face of resources from the area that have been used to develop other parts of the country, said time has come for the Federal Government to take decisive step to end the marginalization and degradation of the Niger Delta and its people.
Akobo, a civil war veteran and former Chairman of the Nigerian Legion in Rivers State, lauded President Buhari for his achievements so far in the fight against corruption and the recovery so far made but argued that there’s much more still to be doru, and urged the president not to rest on his oars until even investments made aboard with stolen money from the country were all repatriated.
He, however, insisted that the fairest and just way of deploying such recovered funds was to commit them to the rebuilding and development of the impacted people and environment from where the stolen funds were sourced, and urged the Federal Government to wear a human face in dealing with the Niger Delta region.
“I think that the president, if he is actually a president of change, this is the change that he should effect as quickly as possible”, he said, adding that “Nigeria should have a human face and the leaders should be able to look at the Niger Delta and put a stop to the pains that the people who are living in this environment have suffered”.
According to Akobo, the recurrent violent agitations in the Niger Delta were the natural reactions of a people who are not sure of a future because of the neglect and injustice they have been made to endure over the years.
“When you feel that you don’t have a future; when you feel that your children don’t have a future; when you know that your life span is short; when you know that soldiers will be sent to the Niger Delta to kill the people any day, why are you preserving the environment? You destroy it,” he said, pointing out, however, that restiveness in the region will be a thing of the past when consensus conscious effort is made by the Nigerian State to address obvious economic and political injustice meted out to the Niger Delta people.
The ex-service man however welcomed the peace initiatives of the Federal Government towards resolving the recent crisis occasioned by the blowing up of oil facilities by the militant group, Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, but stressed that this time around, consultations and stakeholders’ engagement must be broad-based to include all critical segments of the people of the region.
“This is a dying region, so we need to talk but it is not just talking to the youths alone, you must talk with all segments of the people and embark on projects and programmes that will benefit all the people and not just one segment”, he emphasized, adding that a more holistic and pragmatic measure must be devised to address the Niger Delta issue once and for all.
“The best is for us to allow everyone control their resources and pay royality to the federal government. Let everyone contribute to the common purse, it’s not that you come and take what I have and go and eat in your house and impoverish me”, he said, reiterating that agitations everywhere will cease when every region contributes equally to the Commonwealth and are faily treated.