|
Peace in Niger Delta critical
to
Nigeria’s survival –APRM Report
A new report has stated that peace in the Niger
Delta region is critical to the survival and economic revival of
the nation.
 The
report by the African Peer Review Mechanism said that unless
grievances relating to economic inequality, environmental
degradation and social injustice were resolved, the region would
continue to be plagued by unrest. The Special Adviser to the
President on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development,
Ambassador Tunji Olagunju, released the 380-page report on
Monday in Abuja. The APRM experts, led by Ambassador Bethuel
Kiplagat, a Kenyan, concluded the validation in March.
The report noted that by far, the most prominent
intra-state conflict in the country was the violence in the
Niger Delta. It said “the Niger Delta conflict remains the most
formidable and intractable challenge to the Nigerian state since
the return to civilian rule.” According to the report, although
Niger Delta communities are rich in mineral resources worth
billions of dollars, the “suffer extreme neglect as they lack
even the most basic amenities such as clean drinking water, good
schools, health care and good roads.”
 It
added that “more importantly, for nearly half a century the land
and waterways of these oil-rich communities have been
extensively devastated by the exploration activities” of various
transnational oil companies. It said that in order to deny the
communities their claim to the ownership of the land,
“expropriative and draconian laws were passed nationalising all
land and mineral resources located in the oil-rich communities.”
The report said that whenever communities
protested the laws and incessant pollution, the reaction of
government had often been to deploy armed troops to quell
communal resistance.
The APRM said that while military operation was a
short-term measure to quell the unrest in the region, there was
an urgent need for the Federal Government to provide political
and legal solutions to the political, economic and environmental
grievances that had been the root cause of the conflict for
decades.
|
