A group of Niger Delta youths have threatened to take control of oil resources in the region if the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government fails to stop illegal mining activities in the Northern part of the country and subject the North to same security architecture as the Niger Delta.
The youths in a statement on Saturday by the President of Ijaw Youth Council, (IYC) worldwide, Pereotubo Roland Oweilaemi, Esq,.called on the Federal Government to commence the amendment of the Constitution by allowing States to harness and control the resources in their domains.
The group alleged that some powerful individuals are allowed to tap the natural resources in their domains in the North party of the country with the federal government doing nothing about it whilst it subject the Niger Delta region to serious militarization over its oik resources.
According to them, the call for constitutional amendment became imperative due to the fact that Niger Delta people want to control the resources in their lands since solid minerals in the North are now reduced to individual ownership in spite of the enabling laws in the Country vesting ownership of natural resources in the Federal Government.
The statement further read, “If the Nigerian laws did not mean anything to the illegal miners of solid minerals in the North then Niger Delta people will also take control of all petroleum resources in the southern region notwithstanding, the constitutional provisions. Niger Delta oil cannot be subducted to family ownership to Nigeria, while solid minerals in the North are being extracted by those concerned as individual ownership.
“It’s either the Government restructure the Country by allowing States to harness and control the resources in their domains or we will take every steps necessary to exercise control of the resources in our father land.
“Despite the fact that illegal mining activities are causing a bloody crisis in the North, the FG has not deemed it necessary to set up a military joint task force to checkmate the illegal mining activities because the solid minerals in the Country are seen as private ownership to the feudal Lords. There cannot be one Nigeria if everybody in the Country is not treated with the same measure.
“Everyday people have being killed and property worth billions of Naira have been destroyed in the name of illegal oil bunkering activities by the marauding Joint Task Force in the Niger Delta region. The FG chose to protect the oil facilities at the expanse of the oil bearing communities because crude oil is seen as a national property, while solid minerals in the North belongs to the individual persons. Is this the one Nigeria they are preaching?
“President Buhari and the National Assembly should as a matter of national importance initiate the amendment of the Constitution by allowing States to harness and control the resources in their domains. That is the only sour path to peace in Nigeria. Anything short of that will be disastrous to our economic survival as a nation. Niger Delta people will control her resources even if it means to be killed by the trigger-happy and the Niger Deltaphobe military Joint Task Force in the region”.
Culled from: Big Pen Online
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