Politics
FG’s planned N’Delta summit dead on arrival as Clark, others withdraw
The Chief Edwin Clark-led Pan Niger Delta Coastal States Stakeholders Consultative Forum, on Saturday vowed not to attend the proposed two-day summit by the Federal Government.
The group instead, urged United States (US) government to advice President Muhammadu Buhari to honour his initial agreement of dialoguing with militants in the region.
The group made its position known when a three-man delegation from the US visited the elders and stakeholders at Effurun, Delta State. Clark was represented by a former Police Affairs Minister, Alaowei Bozimo at the event.
The Clark dialogue team which has the mandate of many militant groups in the oil region is being visited for the second time by officials from the US. The event was a closed-door meeting without media coverage.
Bozimo, who disclosed the outcome of the meeting to journalists said, “It is timely that the US has come again on a fact-finding mission. We just told them that we want a dialogue and not the summit that Federal Government intended to convene.
Read also: Those who stole Nigeria’s money recruited militants against me, Buhari alleges
“It is equally a wise decision of the government to have suspended that inappropriate summit going by the reports we have received. We believe that the answer is not a summit. The answer is dialogue. The way forward is not the jamborees or endless summits.”
He added that the leaders are hopeful the US fact-finding team will deliver their position to its government.
‘‘They have come to see things for themselves. And we believe they will take the feedback to their government who will then be in a position to advise the Federal Government in order to solve the current situation in the Niger Delta,’’ he said.
By Ebere Ndukwu …
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