By Chris Eriyamremu, Warri
National Coordinator, Niger Delta Peace Coalition NDPC, Zik Gbemre, has warned the Federal Government to desist from strangulating indigenes of oil rich South South region.
He also called on President Muhammdu Buhari to immediately sack all the Directors of NNPC Limited and appoint people of good character and can deliver with reasonable numbers from the South-South.
Gbemre, prominent Activist, in a statement sent to our Correspondent on Tuesday in Warri, Delta State, said: ” NNPC transformed into a limited liability company is another oppression and intimidation of the South-South natives, aborigines of the land that are producing the oil, condensate, and gas which generate the income that is sustaining the entire Nigerian nation.”
He described as insensitivity and deliberate attempt to further oppress the people of the South-South with a proposed malevolent Water Resources Bill to the National Assembly to forcefully take over the creeks/riversides of the people of South South.
” How long will a person be made to live by the riverside and don’t have access to the river water to wash hands? South-South people are living by the river and don’t have water to wash hands and instead wash hands with spittle.
” Buhari has lost governance ideas and appointed people who are clueless as his special advisers and ministers/directors. I am a patriotic Nigerian who believes in one united Nigeria. Buhari has disappointed me with his one-sided administration.
He continued ” I am criticizing Buhari as a weak leader that has surrounded himself with weak/clueless aides that are not advising him well and praising him that all is well. Nigeria has sunk from the bad governance of Buhari in such inciting proportion that it will take a long time to clear the scars of the attendant pains.”
According to him, “The fact that the majority of the petroleum ministers and NNPC GMDs have been of Northern origin is a clear example of how the South-South, essentially the owners of the petroleum resources have been segregated and not allowed to participate.
“This current privatization program has seen only one South-South person being appointed as a director, a decision, in my opinion, would only further divide the nation and add fuel to the general belief that the northerners have indiscriminate control of the nation.”