By Uche Mbah
The Chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Gambari, led a Federal Government delegation to a meeting with South south leaders Tuesday in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, amid expectations that president Buhari was to lead the delegation.
The meeting which was earlier scheduled against November the 7th, was botched at the last minute because the Presidency did not attend.The botched meeting, especially as the Governors and stakeholders were already at the venue, angered many stakeholders in the region who felt the region was deliberately treated shoddily.
The Chief of staff has no constitutional role, but given his experience, especially in displomacy and conflict resolution, the President put him at the Head of the team, which includes Heads of Security Agencies and Ministers from the zone, to interface with Governors and other stakeholders from the zone, since after the #EndSARS protest.
The team had already met with other Zones, including the South-east and South-west Zones.
At the end of the meeting, however, the leaders of the zone stood on restructuring along the lines of true federalism and devolution of powers to all federating units.
A statement released Tuesday form the Delta state Government House Asaba noted that it was the Governor of Delta state, Ifeanyi Okowa, that presented the demands of the region to the meeting.
He insisted that now is the time to bring back the country to true federalism.
“For us in the South-South, the #EndSARS protest is a metaphor of almost all that is wrong with us, our refusal to properly understand issues, and imbibe and entrench the virtues of justice, fairness and equity”, the release said.
“The previous system of true federalism was jettisoned and it created a powerful center controlling and distributing all the resources unevenly.
“There is now a strong desire to restructure the country in order to guarantee peace, security, stability and progress of the nation.
“The region demands true federalism and devolution of powers to the states, including creating and managing their own police and security architecture, true fiscal federalism guided by the principle of derivation, revenue sharing and control of resources by each state,” he said.
According to statement, Nigerians have refused to understand the peculiar condition of the region.
“All we demand and ask for is fairness and equity and as we await actions to restructure the country, we hereby renew our demands for: ‘The relocation of the headquarters of major oil companies in Nigeria to the region; relocation of several NNPC subsidiaries from Lagos and Abuja to the region.
“The region further requests the completion, without delay, of the East-West Road and all federal roads in the region; Construction of the Lagos-Calabar railway, reconstruction and rehabilitation of the region’s major seaports notably the Port Harcourt, Calabar and Warri,” he said.
Part of theirn demands are privatization of the refineries in the South-south, release of all funds owed the Niger Delta development commission, NDDC and the amendment of the acts establishing the Commission.
They called for the establishment of buffer dams to control flood waters in the region and abandoned gas revolution industrial park at Ogidigben and the stepping down of power plants at the Okpai and Utorogu gas plants.
In response, Gambari apologized for earlier botched meeting of November 17.
“We are here on behalf of the President as part of the ongoing and continuing conversation on how to make our nation better, and I must thank the Governor of Delta, Sen. Ifeanyi Okowa, for his tireless effort in ensuring that this meeting was held”, he said.
“Our youths took to the streets to express their bitterness on ill-treatment meted out to them by the police and the President, recognizing the importance of the demands made by the protesters, agreed to implement the five-point demands.
“All over the world, people have right to protest but in doing so, respect for law and order must be adhered to, and they must also respect the rights of others.
“The President commends Governors, traditional rulers and other stakeholders for their role in handling the protesters,” he said
The region which have been agitating for the control of its resources was futther energised to emphasise on that since Zamfara State mined and sold a bar of gold to the CBN at a cost of N5b.
