IYC Shuts down NDDC Offices in Warri, Port Harcourt

By Nseobong Okon-Ekong in Lagos and Sylvester Idowu
in Warri

The Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) Worldwide yesterday shut down the Warri and the Port Harcourt offices of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), in protest against the federal government’s refusal to inaugurate a substantive board for the interventionist agency.

THISDAY gathered that scores of youths, clad in red t-shirts and IYC muffler scarfs, stormed the office located in Edjeba, Warri South council area of Delta state, yesterday morning to press home their demand.

Stickers with inscriptions such as “Inaugurate substantive NDDC board,” We say no to bad governance,” IOCs must not remit $1.6 billion to NDDC for now,” Restructure Nigeria now, we seek justice in the NDDC” were pasted on the entrance of the NDDC building.

The body had given a 30-day ultimatum to the federal government to constitute the board otherwise faces a shutdown of the Niger Delta region.

The ultimatum expired midnight Tuesday, hence the protest which is ongoing despite uncertainties about the whereabouts of the IYC President, Mr. Peter Igbifa.

Igbifa was on his way to the Port Harcourt International Airport in Rivers State on Tuesday, to board a flight to Abuja for a meeting, when masked gunmen blocked his vehicle, seized him and took him to an unknown destination.

Speaking at the protest ground in Warri, the National Secretary of the IYC, Mr. Frank Pukon, told journalists that the youths would live up to the plans to shut down the Niger Delta pending when the President Muhammadu Buhari will appoint a substantive board.

“It’s quite disheartening that at this point in time, we are demonstrating for a substantive board to be set up, rather than calling on the Federal Government to come up with a development plan for the Niger Delta like they developed Abuja.

“In the next few hours, we will shut down the entire region, when I say shutdown, it includes the oil companies, pending when the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will hearken to the voice of reasoning,” the IYC scribe stated.

Pockets of protests were also recorded at the commission’s headquarters in Port Harcourt, while a partial blockade of the East-West Road was carried out by the aggrieved Ijaw youths.

Spokesperson of the IYC, Mr. Ebilade Ekerefe told THISDAY in a phone conversation that the plan to carry out a full-scale shutdown of oil production facilities in the Niger Delta region could not be carried out because of the alleged last-minute kidnap of the IYC President, Mr. Peter Igbifa, whose whereabouts were still unknown.

Ekerefe explained, “After the President disappeared we had to review our strategy. In an organisation like this, somebody must be in charge. So, we have held series of meetings to decide who should take charge in the interim. One thing I can assure you is that we are going ahead with the shutdown.

“If they think we will chicken out because the President of IYC is missing, they are not reading the situation well. Our demand is simple, just and constitutional. We are entitled to deploy even the means of a protest to press home our demand,” he said.