The Ijaw Youth Council has called of the Federal Government to commence the steps to implement the core recommendations of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Committee’s report on Restructuring, Power Devolution and True Federalism
The Secretary-General of the IYC (Worldwide), Alfred Kemepado, said in a statement on Monday that only the implementation of the report of the Committee led by the Governor òf Kaduna State, Nasir El Rufai, before the 2019 elections would show seriousness on the part of the government.
According to him, the curious silence which have followed the celebrated recommendations of the El Rufai Committee, seemed to suggest that the recommendations were inspired by a motive to deceive the people once again for the purpose of elections.
He stressed that the APC and the Federal had a moral burden to prove theirs sincerity to Nigerians on the recommendations by the El Rufai Committee.
The El Rufai Committee which made far reaching recommendations on power devolution, true federalism also proposed to put onshore mineral resources including oil and gas under the control of the states of the federation.
Kemepado said that the recommendations reinforced the spirit of the letters of the Kaiama Declaration which captured the demand of the Ijaw people for resource control within the Nigerian Federation.
Kemepado said that the position of Governor Henry Seriake Dickson on the issue of restructuring represented the collective view not only of the Ijaw people but also the entire Niger Delta.
The IYC Scribe called on Ijaw youths across the higher institutions of the South West to mobilize to the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, where Governor Dickson is billed to deliver a crucial lecture titled “Restructuring and the Search for a Productive Nigeria,” as a Distinguished Guest Lecturer of the institution’s Faculty of Arts on July 12, 2018.
Kemepado linked the herdsmen-farmers crisis and the killings a cross the country to the tendency to control resources to the deprivation of stakeholders.
According to him, the current situation of insecurity being experienced by some parts of the country had been a major aspect of the Niger Delta People’s struggle for resource control and fairness in resource allocation over the years.
