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The former governor of Delta State, James Onanefe Ibori, has urged governors, legislators, and other leaders of the South-South of the mandate to reposition the region through fiscal federalism.
He spoke in celebration of the 24th anniversary of the South-South Governors, Legislators, and Leaders’ Summit held in Asaba, Delta State, on March 31,2000.
The formal governor through a statement issued on Saturday by his Spokesman, Tony Eluemunor, noted that despite all the associated gains of the Niger Delta struggle, much remains unaccomplished and that new challenges have arisen.
Ibori, a strident advocate of fiscal federalism, was governor of Delta state from 1999 – 2007, and inaugurated a major landmark of the project to ensure the control of its resources by the Niger Delta via fiscal federalism at a summit he convened in Asaba, the Delta State capital, on March 31, 2000.
He congratulated South-South governors, state legislators and National Assembly members on their elections.
He emphasized that the baton bestowed on them huge responsibilities beyond infrastructure.
He also argued that the enthronement of true fiscal federalism was a higher calling for which they must respond and take charge on behalf, and for the benefit, of their people.
He expressed the hope that ten months after inauguration, all the rancour, bitterness and disagreements occasioned by the politics of the last election were now behind.
“From where I stand, the question is, what’s the trajectory of the Niger Delta Region? “We must pull together to answer that question to the benefit of Niger Deltans.”
It will be recalled that the concern for the well-being of the good people of the Niger Delta region prompted Ibori to convene that summit about a quarter of a century ago. 24 years after that first SouthSouth leaders’ summit, Ibori said he wished to encourage the present governors, South-South national legislators, and in deed the entire people of the zone to address the salient problems, old and new.
Among the old is the Land and Environmental question and a higher derivation principle percentage.
At that summit 24 years ago, he had said: “The land and environment are our natural patrimony.
Any legislation that is aimed at taking our land rights from us should matter to us at all times, at least for the sake of our children and the generation unborn.
“It is against this note of serious concern that I humbly draw the attention of Your Excellencies and distinguished lawmakers to the land Use Act, 1978, which vested ownership in the country in both the State and Federal Governments.
“To the unwary or uniformed, it does not take away the right of the people to use and occupy their land.
“But for the more informed, it is one of the instruments by which our people and States have been denied the right to their patrimony under and over land.
“This is more serious when we realize that little or no attempt is made to remedy the damage done to our environment through the massive exploitation of our underground and undersea natural resources for a ceaseless period of almost 40 years.
“We are witnesses to the evils of environmental degradation, impoverishment and displacement of our people from their homesteads, farmlands and fishing streams, poor industrial base, youth restiveness, communal conflicts and violence, high rate of criminal activities, physical underdevelopment, mass unemployment and the associated problems of insecurity that oil and gas exploration have inflicted on our environment and people.”
While expatiating on the issues on Saturday, he noted that New problems have cropped up. Although in 2000, there had been no cases of cattle herders seizing the bushes of the entire South-South zone, killing farmers, raping women and kidnapping people while the Police remained comatose and the people frozen by fear, Chief Ibori’s words appeared to have foreshadowed their emergence.
“This definitely brings to the fore calls for state and community policing. “Now, the South-South has to go beyond the lip service some of our governors paid to the establishment of state security agencies and combine forces to raise a South-South zonal self-defence team and seek ways to enforce the law against open grazing enacted by most of our state legislatures,” he said in the statement.
He added that the South-South states must cooperate even in providing social amenities as Delta and Edo states, under him and Gov. Lucky Igbinedion, collaborated in the Onicha-Ugbo to Uromi road construction, through Idumuje-Ugboko, Ubiaja and Ewohimi which sliced over an hour from Asaba to Abuja trip and opened once remote areas to commercial activities.
