A Niger Delta group, United Niger Delta Energy Development Security Strategy (UNDEDSS), has called on the Federal Government to dialogue with the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, just as it reiterated its solidarity with the goals of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
The group warned agitators of Biafra not to see the Niger Delta as it’s conquered territory.
According to the group, “the federal government should, without further delay, open channels of communication with the dissenters in the South-East of the nation who, so far, are merely peacefully exercising their Freedoms to Associate, to speak and to aspire towards non-violent self-determination, such as we’ve seen happening, even this year, in Britain and Canada, without causing any untoward reactions.”
Rising from an emergency meeting , its National Working Committee called on government to put behind it the rancor of political campaigns and “immediately start being perceived as being truly more open, more inclusive and more nationalistic in outlook, and less exclusive, sectional or partisan.”
In a statement by its secretary, Mr Tony Uranta, it urged the federal government to “urgently devise ways for it to begin to establish itself as more accessible, less militaristic, and more ready to deploy rule-of-law mechanisms to impartially interface with all persons or groups it perceives as being putative dissenters or opposed to it.”
The statements reads: “The Executive should show contrition for all its past recent acts of non-respect for the Powers and Independence of the Legislative and Judicial Arms of the FGN, and, immediately cease the frighteningly increasing Culture of Impunity such as evidenced in its constant refusal to comply with orders on it by the Judiciary, and the Legislative and Judicial Arms should reciprocate, all for The General Good of the Nigerian citizenry.
“The fighting forces of Nigeria must be expeditiously and comprehensively equipped with the best affordable matériel and training, regardless of source, must be shown its limitations in a democracy, and must cease to see itself as an instrument of internal coercion against Nigerian citizens, instead of being rightly identified and revered, by law-abiding citizens of this Democracy, as last-bastion defenders of the nation’s integrity and space against armed incursions, insurrection, terrorism and the like.
“The legitimate duties and responsibilities of the Civil Security Agents (including the Police, the Department of State Security [DSS] et al) must not be hijacked by any other Agencies of the FGN (including the Armed Forces!) in controlling civil security flashpoints, including the monitoring, interfacing with, or control of non-armed persons or groups exercising their democratic rights and freedom.
The group also called on the government to check the excesses of Fulani herdsmen, “The federal government must come out to reassure Nigerians and the world that it does not intend to condone the atrocities of cattle herdsmen or rustlers anywhere in Nigeria, that it will uphold the Right to Life of every Nigerian, that it will cease to subject citizens perceived as not being in its good books to unfair trial-by-media before arraigning and prosecuting said citizens if they have cases to answer, and that it will be less determined to have its way, even if that way is not congruent with the electorate leanings.”
_Emmanuel Ikechukwu
