OGONI leaders have again urged the Federal Government and delegates at the National Conference to review the current list of states being proposed and ensure that Bori State is included.
Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu has expressed regrets that the state is allegedly listed by a pro-President Goodluck Jonathan group among those considered to be parasitic in the country, which contribute nothing to Federation Account, in spite of the huge deposit of coal worth billions of dollars in the state.
The Ogoni reiterated that if Bori State is not included in the list of states to be created, Ogoni people would be forced to seek other ways of expressing their right to self-determination and political autonomy.
This was part of the decision taken at the weekend during the general congress of the Ogoni people at the Peace and Freedom Centre in Bori, Rivers State.
The congress was attended by leaders of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) and representatives of its constituent organisations, chiefs, farmers, traders, professionals, politicians, youths and women.
MOSOP President, Legborsi Saro Pyagbara, in a statement issued after the congress, described the current debacle on resource control and derivation as needless and insensitive. According to him, “the Congress further reiterated that it stands by earlier position of MOSOP that communities should be given 100 per cent control over their resources and pay the necessary taxes to the Federal Government.”
Pyagbara said the congress condemned the stunning and continuing failure of the Federal Government to set up a proper process for implementation of the recommendations of the environmental study of Ogoniland and called on the Ogoni people to join the non-violent protest being organised by MOSOP to demonstrate the anger of the Ogoni people against the Federal Government’s stance.
According to him, the Congress also mandated MOSOP to intensify its internationalisation of the campaign for the clean-up and restoration of the Ogoni environment, including invoking provisions of international environmental and human rights laws to hold Nigeria accountable to her alleged misdeeds against the Ogoni people.
The pro-Jonathan group, ‘Committee of Pro-Federal Delegates in the
National Conference”, in a well published advertorial on how southern states subsidise northern states, was said to have listed Enugu State among those with zero contribution to the Federation Account.
Addressing the Udi Local Council Executive Committee of the party, APC Spokesman in the South-East and an indigene of the council, Osita Okechukwu, said it was regrettable that Enugu State has been rendered parasitic by the PDP-led government, stressing that since the return to civil rule, the Igbo voted passionately for the PDP without commensurate reward.
“The paradox is that the same PDP is the one demonising Enugu State, forgetting that the PDP-led Federal Government, from Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to President Goodluck Jonathan, has made strong promises to revamp the Enugu coal abandoned since the Biafran Civil War, yet no dice”, he said.
He urged members to mobilise the good people of Enugu State to vote for the APC in the 2015 general elections, as all the support Ndigbo gave to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the years, seems to be in vain.
Source: The GuardianNG
