PANDEF accuses FG of reneging on promised Niger Delta talks

The Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) has accused the Federal Government of reneging on its promised consultations with the Niger Delta region since 2016.

The group of elders said instead of engaging in meaningful discourses on the way forward, the government was engaging in a monologue with the people.

PANDEF noted that rather than continue discussions with the Niger Delta on the 16-point agenda raised by its leaders, the Muhammadu Buhari administration was either talking to itself or not engaging at all.

The national chairman of the umbrella body of the South- South people, Air Commodore Idongesit Nkanga (rtd), who spoke at the inauguration of the Bayelsa chapter of PANDEF in Yenagoa, also called for the restructuring of the nation.

The state chapter is led by Chief Thompson Okorotie while Senator Enatimi Rufus-Spiff and Douglas Naigba are vice chairman and secretary.

Assisted by his deputy, Chief Francis Doukpala, secretary, Dr Alfred Mulade, and other leaders, Nkanga, said the essence of the dialogue when PANDEF was set up by its founders was to examine ways to douse the anger and discontentment with the Federal Government, but regretted that not much had been achieved in that direction.

The former military administrator of Akwa Ibom State recalled: “On 1, 2016, we met with the president and that resulted in a 16-point agenda.

What could have followed and what was desired was that there should be dialogues between the Niger Delta and the Federal Government so we could look at the myriad of problems we have here.

“But there was just, perhaps one dialogue. Since then, it has turned to monologue and today we have no ‘logue’ at all.

Yet, the problems are still there.”

He, however, stated that the group remains undeterred by the government’s seeming silence, explaining that it had been able to collaborate with other organisations from the rest of the country to drum support for restructure.