Ijaw Youths Disagree over NDDC Board Tenure

Emmanuel Addeh in Yenagoa
Leaders of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) worldwide, on Tuesday disagreed over the ruckus caused by the rumoured extension of the current board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

The Central Zone of the IYC, covering the entire Bayelsa and parts of Rivers State, said in a statement in Yenagoa, that it was not part of a recent protest by a faction of its national body, stressing that it would support any board that had capacity to bring development to the region.

The Peretubo Oweilami-led national body of IYC had led a protest to the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, along with a Niger Delta activist, Ankio Briggs, and demanded the dissolution of the Senator Ndoma Egba-led board.

Mr. Tare Porri, Chairman of the central area who distanced the zone he leads from the controversy, said the entire youths from Bayelsa had earlier taken a position not to distract the current management of NDDC to enable it deliver on its mandate.

He said the zone would never be involved in the politicisation of NDDC management as far as the current board remained focused in giving the zone its share of developmental projects.
He added that persons, who, arranged the Port-Harcourt protest failed to even consult the zone, which they claimed was supposed to produce the next management of the board.
Porri warned some “Abuja-based politicians” against hijacking the IYC to play dangerous politics insisting that Bayelsa remained the epicentre of the council.

“We have said it before and we want to say it again. Count us out of this NDDC tenure controversy.
“The central zone of the IYC was not aware and was never part of whatever protest that had been done in Port-Harcourt. The zone was never consulted and we don’t know whatever that happened there.

“We are the epicentre of the IYC, the Jerusalem of the Ijaw nation. Nobody should use the IYC to play party politics in Abuja”, he said. He added: “Our position as a zone is that IYC is interested in an NDDC board; we are interested in a board that will bring developments to Bayelsa State and by extension, the central zone.

“We are interested in an NDDC board that will partner with the government of states in the region in order to come up with priority projects for the overall good of our people.
“We will not accept a board that will destroy the foundation of the Ijaw people. We don’t want divide-and-rule board. So, the issues of tenure elongation or no tenure elongation, we are not interested.

“Our number one interest is that we want a NDDC board that will engage young people. We want NDDC board that will certainly partner with the government and people of Bayelsa state to come up with priority projects.”
He listed the Ekeremo-Sagbama road, the road leading from Yenagoa to Oporoma and the Ogbia-Brass road, as some of the priority projects NDDC could partner with the state government to deliver to the people.
According to Porri, if there is any controversy anywhere, President Muhammadu Buhari should know what to do, insisting that that the matter has been ‘unduly over-flogged’.