Ughelli — Niger Delta youths have said they perceive and accept as invitation to war recent statements by Ibrahim Babangida and Abubakar Atiku, warning that Goodluck Jonathan may in 2011 terminate as the last President of the Nigerian nation.
Babangida was quoted to have said "any attempt to disrupt the zoning formula (of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP) would hinder peaceful transition of political power in 2011", while Atiku has stated that
"those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable".Under the aegis of the Niger Delta Creeks Redemption Forces, the youths said they appreciate elements sympathetic to region's plight, but in the circumstances "perceive the reported statements of former military President IBB, and former Vice President Abubakar Atiku as an open invitation to war".
"We hereby accept their challenge of war and declare that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan may be the last President of Nigeria if a Niger Deltan is not allowed to emerge President in 2011 to redress the age-long neglect of the region", a statement by the group's spokesman, Sam-Ebi Okosula, said.
The group noted that despite reality of the PDP zoning arrangement, Atiku and IBB had several reasons to make sacrifices and support rather than oppose Jonathan's ambition in 2011.
The sincerity of Atiku and IBB's repeated claims of concern for the Niger Delta, the group said, necessitated appreciation that "Dr. Goodluck Jonathan's Presidential ambition in 2011 is a child of necessity that could help reconcile the long-neglected and estranged Niger Delta region back to Nigeria.
"At independence, the development of the backward Niger Delta and the totally neglected Ijaw country was made responsibility of the Federal Government which has successively and consistently admitted neglect of the area", the group informed.
It added: "Save for feudal arrangements placing our development at the mercy of non-Niger Deltans admittedly failing us, no real opportunity/prospect has come this close to enable us plan our own improvement at the capable central government as Jonathan's ambition within PDP, being the largest party in Africa".
The group said Jonathan's ambition and emergence in 2011 would provide sufficient opportunity for a Niger Deltan, denied since independence to be at governance of the region's resources that have, for over 50 years, been mainstay of Nigeria 's economy and regenerate the region's environment despoiled by oil exploration activities.
The group said: "We expected IBB, Abubakar Atiku, Adamau Ciroma and their likes in the North to yield place to a South South Presidency to reciprocate the sacrifices/denials of the South South whose graduates have given chance as compromise to a generation of Northern graduates to remain in employ and in the commanding heights of the oil companies that work in our lands".
Condemning the uncompromising moves by Atiku and IBB to push Jonathan out of PDP, the group said it would in 2011 take steps to "redeem our creeks violated by unwanted elements and salvage our humanity from the so-called Nigerian federation that seeks to enslave us.
"In the Kaiama Declaration, we had agreed to be part of Nigeria in a functional federation that is just and exercises equity among her people, not one that treats the Ijaw and indeed Niger Deltans as second class citizens", it clarified.
Source:Allafrica.
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