Hundreds of youth of the South South zone of Nigeria rose from an extraordinary meeting with a call on the Federal Government to expedite action towards full development of the Brass Liquefied Natural Gas plant and the Oloibiri Oil Museum, both in Bayelsa State.

The youth, under the aegis of South South Peoples Assembly (SSYA), who met in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, expressed dissatisfaction over what the body described as a snail speed in the development of the Brass LNG facility, which has over the decades been on the drawing board, and appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure that work on the project was fast tracked in view of its importance to the economy of the region, and indeed, the nation.

National Chairman of the body, Barrister Felix Amadi, who said this, also noted that past administrations in the country did not show enough seriousness in the development of the Oloibiri Oil Museum, and urged the present government to complete the museum without delay.

Amadi stressed that when fully developed, the museum would help in archiving records on oil exploration and production activities in the country, which could be easily retrieved and referenced by scholars, researchers, tourists, among others.

“Apart from keeping important records of oil exploration activities, the project would also expand employment opportunities for youth of the South South zone, which has high unemployment rate”, he said.

Amadi, who commended President Jonathan’s administration for ensuring the passage of both the Freedom of Information Bill and the National Minimum Wage Bill and for assenting to them without delay, said the problem of petroleum scarcity as well as increasing the power generation capacity of the country were noteworthy.

He expressed confidence in the ability of the Jonathan-led administration to provide a permanent solution to the lame power supply situation and the leadership problem that had for long frustrated the nation, saying that his swift action to end petroleum products scarcity has shown that he could muster the political will to address the mountain of problems besetting the country.

The youth body, he said would continue to partner with organized private sector and government agencies towards sustaining the peace that has been achieved so far in the country, stressing that the current peaceful atmosphere, if sustained, would encourage both local and foreign investors to set up companies that would help employ the youth.

The body, however, advised the present administration to liberalise power distribution to enable states and private investors to intervene by investing massively in the distribution sub-sector as a means of solving the nation’s nightmare in power supply.

Amadi suggested that states and the Federal Government could adopt geopolitical zone approach in the industrialization effort to ensure that the South South gets its fair share of the nation’s wealth and resources.

Commenting on the suggestion from some quarters for the merging of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) with the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, the group described those canvassing the idea as enemies of the zone, explaining that the ministry and the commission were creations of the laws of the land to perform different functions in the region.

He said instead of scrapping NDDC, more funds should be given to it while more development commissions should be established to take care of the peculiar environmental, ecological, deltaic and coastal nature of the region in fashioning socio-economic development programmes and projects to fast track the rebirth and reinvigoration of communities in the region.

Chris Oluoh