BEVERLY HILLS, July 18, (THEWILL) – The Minister of Youths and Sports, Solomon Dalung, has revealed how he met with the leadership of the militant Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, in Oporoza, Gbaramatu Kingdom in Delta State, who he said handed him a sealed hand-written letter to deliver to President Muhammadu Buhari.
Dalung told newsmen at the end of a stakeholders’ meeting of the Southern senatorial zone of Plateau State at the weekend that he took a two-hour journey to the creeks of Oporoza last Wednesday for a face-to-face chat with the agitators as part of federal government’s commitment to end bombing of oil installations in the region.
According to him, “As youth minister, I know that the Avengers are mostly youths who have potentials to be great citizens of this country.
“On reaching the community after the two-hour journey on the high sea, I met with the members of the communities who told me that their dream was to be included in the Nigerian project, that the education facilities and other basic social amenities are almost non-existent in the communities. They also raised concern of incessant attacks by the Nigerian Military.”
The minister recalled that after meeting with the communities, he was escorted by the Niger Delta ambassadors to the leadership of Avengers who gave him a hand-written letter specifying their demands which he said he was yet to present to President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said he has not opened the letter but that the Avengers raised three important issues to him which include: “the Niger-Delta Maritime University, pipeline community policing which they said the government had denied them, and the inability of the government to continue with the amnesty programme established by former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.”
Dalung regretted that previous administrations had been unjust to the people of the region, stressing that the level of degradation in Niger-Delta communities was disturbing.
His words, “After going round some of the communities, I noticed that government projects were almost non-existent. I saw a secondary school signboard somewhere but the school is yet to be developed, the community has a clinic but still at the foundation level and a borehole that is not functional.”
“On reaching the community after the two-hour journey on the high sea, I met with the members of the communities who told me that their dream was to be included in the Nigerian project, that the education facilities and other basic social amenities are almost non-existent in the communities. They also raised concern of incessant attacks by the Nigerian Military.”
The minister disclosed that he was escorted by the Niger Delta ambassadors to the leadership of Avengers, who gave him a hand-written letter specifying their demands which he said he was yet to present to the President.
