A Yoruba group, O’odua Nationalist Coalition, (ONAC) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint an indigene of oil producing community in Ondo State as the next Managing Director of the Niger-Delta Development Commission, (NDDC).

According to the group, the need to appoint an Ondo indigene is a matter of law and justice and not that the government is doing any specific favour.

ONAC, a coalition of 35 Yoruba groups said it supported the position of Ilaje Parapo Forum that it was high time the oil producing communities in Ondo State produced the next NDDC Managing Director.

The group in a statement by Dr Sanyaolu Adigun and Olu Suleiman maintained that out of the nine oil producing states, Ondo State remains the only state which has not produced the managing director of the commission contrary to section 12 of the NDDC act which stipulated that the position of the Managing Director and the two other Executive Directors should be rotated among all the oil producing states

ONAC urged the President to appoint a technocrat from Ilaje community who is honest, tested and who can translate the change dream into reality among the oil producing communities.

“Ilaje people and their Itsekiri cousins were the only oil producing communities that maintained the calm even as the wave of insurgency and kidnapping took the entire region by storm. Some communities took up arms, others disrupted oil production, while some others resulted into killings, but Ilaje maintained their peace. We think they deserve compensation for being peaceful in the way and manner they presented their demands”, the group said.