Atiku will revitalise Niger Delta region, halts oil theft, says Okowa

Optimistic of PDP’s victory in oil reach states

Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa has affirmed the strategic development plans of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Alh. Atiku Abubakar to renew the fortune of the oil-rich Niger Delta.

Besides, Okowa assured that if voted to power in 2023, Atiku would halt the protracted oil theft with a matching order to security agencies to bring those behind illegal bunkering in the region to book.

Okowa, who gave the assurance when speaking with journalists in Kano, maintained that the PDP government is prepared to hit the ground running from day one in office.

The PDP presidential running mate who regretted that Nigeria, under the present administration, remained incapacitated to meet the 2.2 million barrel daily quota largely due to illicit oil bunkering, stressed that the Atiku/Okowa joint ticket will work closely with communities in the region, especially in the area of surveillance of oil pipelines.

Okowa said: “What started in small ways has continued to grow into illegal refining in the Niger Delta area and it continues to upscale. We now have a lot of locals engaging in criminality. I believe that we need to ensure that the communities are fully engaged and get close with the NNPC, oil companies and security agencies to protect oil pipelines.

“As a government, we are going to take the community as stakeholders, appeal to their conscience and call them to realise the danger of what they are doing to the environment and unborn children. Very importantly as well, is to ensure the PIA is fully implemented and funds get to the communities.

“We must take development to the people because the majority of these communities where oil flow in their neighbourhood and never benefitted in the gains, would never feel any connection with the entity call Nigeria, but the more we develop the communities and provide schools for their children, they would respond positively.”

Okowa, who extolled the credibility of the presidential candidate to handle the complexity of the nation’s challenges, declared that Atiku would never be a dictator president if voted to power.

He declared that with the level of mistrust and fragmentation of the nation’s fabric orchestrated by the APC-led government, Nigerians need a unifying character possessed by the PDP presidential candidate, to restore past glory.

Okowa, who dismissed dissenting agitation against the PDP candidate by some aggrieved leaders of the party in the region, however, assumed the victory of Atiku Abubakar in the South-South.

“Many of those seeking to be president today can truly prove some level of experience but the thing is, the Nigeria of today required somebody who has a wide level of experience and capacity and personal dominion to be able to handle issues in such a way that we can truly trust, and I can tell you that Atiku is the only candidate that can truly handle the trust,” he said.

On what the PDP government will do differently on incessant industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), if voted to power, Okowa stressed that education would be prioritised as a major stake for future generations.

The Delta State Governor attributed the protracted dispute between ASUU and the Federal Government to distortion of truth and failure of the authority to bring ASUU to a roundtable with a bid to resolve the contending issues.

“The relationship with ASUU should have remained strong without waiting until when there is a crisis. You sit down and analysis the situation with the union, then the government should be able to make promises they can keep. You don’t make promises and then, for two months or three months, you say you can no longer meet the demand. Once the government bridge the trust in the agreement, ASUU will not trust the government anymore.

“We can not destroy the foundation of education of our children because you would have destroyed the nation totally and that is not right. Our relationship with ASUU is such that you put them on the roundtable even before the crisis to address the grey areas,” Okowa noted.