Politics

2023: Niger Delta Tables Demands Before Peter Obi

Published

2 years ago

December 24, 2022

…Says ‘Zone Will Play A Critical Role In Your Govt When You Win’

… Let’s together fix Nigeria – Obi

The leadership of the Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF has tabled the demand for true federalism among other things before the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi.

PANDEF made the demand at an interactive meeting held on Friday in Yenagoa when Obi visited Bayelsa State in continuation of his presidential campaign.

The group’s demand read to the Labour Party candidate which was signed by Senator Emmanuel Ibok Essien,

National Chairman and Dr Godknows B. Igali, Secretary, Board of Trustees, insisted that Obi shows commitment to a true federal structure if elected president of the country.

Senator Essien while presenting the region’s demands told Obi, “when you win you have to protect our interest because the Niger Delta is the region that produces over 80 per cent of the revenue of the country and we cannot be taken for granted. We are asking you to consider structural adjustment/devolution of power with more resources to the regions. This will help the regions to develop at their own pace and will help the country to grow.

“We also want you to look at the restructuring of NDDC, which was established to help the Niger Delta region. The policies, including regional master plan which were made have not been implemented. Also, projects like railway within the South South, referral hospitals, agricultural value chain plants, the East- West road which for over 20 years has not been completed.

“The immediate reactivation of all sea ports in the South South and creation of new ports to encourage movement of goods and services from the South South through the South East and North Central to the North East.

“This will also boost economic and employment opportunities for our young people.

“Relocation of the Headquarters of International Oil Companies, IOCs, to their areas of operation in Niger Delta.

“Supporting the setting up of modular refineries to promote employment opportunities, check security challenges in the Niger Delta and supplement local production of refined products.

“Completion of the Gas Mega City in Delta State, the Brass Fertilizer Complex in Bayelsa State, and the reactivation of ALSCON Aluminum Smelter Plant in Akwa Ibom State as well as formation of Coast Guards under the supervision of the Nigerian Navy to bolster Maritime Security.

“The I6-Point Agenda – we presented the 16-Point Demand to the present administration on 1st November 2016. We will provide copies to you and your team for your perusal and finally, we like to place on record, the desire of the South-South Zone to play a critical role in the success of your government, when you win as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“Your Excellency, the South-South Geopolitical Zone hereby requests for strategic position in government.”

Responding, the Labour Party Presidential candidate promised to harken to the cry of the people of the Niger Delta.

He said: “We (the Nigerian state) have been very unfair to the Niger Delta. It is unacceptable the way the region has been treated considering their contributions to Nigeria.

“We run a country that is not productive, a country that has been churning out poverty to everybody. There is no excuse for the non-completion of the East-West road. The list is endless of what is happening in the Niger Delta.”

He decried the situation where Nigeria depend mainly on the crude oil from the Niger Delta instead of harnessing the country’s rich agricultural potential, citing countries like Malaysia whose economy is driven by palm oil.

“We have land but we cannot feed ourselves because we are sharing the money from the Niger Delta and this breeds poverty.

“We cannot continue this way, we want to remove that sharing formula with the production formula, everybody must produce something.

“We want to secure and unite Nigeria, we want to be able to ensure rule of law, and ensure an equitable and just country. We can’t have this without proper devolution of power. There is no reason we cannot have state police to secure our people. There is no reason we cannot have local government police. We need to secure ourselves.

“We want to move the country from consumption to production. We will start by ensuring those who are producing today are taken care of and we assure the Niger Delta of our commitment.”

Whatever is wrong with Nigeria, we’ll fix it

Before this, Obi had assured Nigerians that whatever was wrong with the country he and Ahmed Datti possess the mental and physical capacity to fix it.

Obi stated this at the Ox-bow Lake Pavilion, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State during the Labour Party LP, Presidential campaign rally on Friday.

Obi, who had earlier had a town hall meeting with students, an interactive meeting with the Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, and met with monarchs at the state council of traditional rulers lamented that Bayelsa State and the Niger Delta have not gotten a fair share from the Federal Government despite contributing about 80 per cent to the national coffers through crude oil.

His words: “Let me assure you, whatever is wrong with this family (country) we will fix it. Anything that I am involved in must be based on justice, fairness, and goodness for Nigeria.

“Let me assure the people of Bayelsa State, Nigeria has not treated you well, when you were under flood, Nigeria did not care, I was the first person that stopped our rally to visit Bayelsa because Bayelsa was under water. We will ensure that Bayelsa gets its fair share of what they have given to Nigeria.

“All the other parties have made promises to Bayelsa State in the past but did not fulfil it. We are not going to do that, Bayelsa State deserves more than what it is getting today from Nigeria, and I am going to give it to them. Bayelsa must have roads and the best because this is where Nigeria found its first crude oil in commercial quantity.

“Everywhere there is environmental pollution, I will clean it up, Bayelsa will be able to fish and eat fish from their rivers again. Most importantly we are going to dredge Rivers Niger and Benue to stop this flooding to Bayelsa.”

He also pledged to take Nigeria from a consuming country to a production country adding that women and youths will have sensitive positions in his administration.

“This job requires people who are competent, it requires physical and mental, go and check I and Datti’s energy and age, a new Nigeria is possible, Nigeria where people will have jobs is possible, a Nigeria that will compete in the world is possible.”

He also bemoaned the incessant strike in the nation university system promising to end the menace if elected as president.

He said: “We will ensure there is no strike again in our universities, four years will be four years, five years will be five years, I and Datti will secure Nigeria, we will make sure there is rule of law in Nigeria, police will not harass anyone on the road, police will not stop students from carrying their laptops again.

“This is time for Nigerian youths to take up their government, we want to build a Nigeria that Nigerians will be proud to say they are Nigerians, we will support our youths to be very productive.”

Earlier at an interactive meeting, the Pan Niger Delta Forum had tabled the demand for federalism before the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi.

Led by the group’s national chairman, Senator Emmanuel Ebok-Essien, Pandef insisted that he must be committed to a true federal structure if elected the president.

The group also stressed the need to consider the East-West road which for over 20years had not been completed as well as reactivation of existing sea ports and also creation of some sea ports in the region so as to boost the economy and employment opportunities for the youths.

VANGUARD

Politics

Why I left Tinubu’s Govt — Former Aide Aliyu Audu Declares

Published

13 hours ago

June 16, 2025

Editor

A former Senior Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Public Affairs, Aliyu Audu, has revealed that he resigned from the administration in order to actively campaign against Tinubu’s re-election bid in 2027.

Speaking on Monday during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Audu said his decision was driven by a matter of “principle and conscience,” as he accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of attempting to turn Nigeria into a one-party state.

“It confirmed it on one hand, and on the other hand, it strengthened my resolve to not work for him in 2027,” Audu said, referring to Tinubu’s Democracy Day speech where the president claimed to enjoy seeing the opposition in disarray.

“I couldn’t in all honesty and in my conscience be in his government knowing I’m plotting against removal in 2027, because I will, and by God, we will remove him. Collectively, Nigerians will install a leader that will be our chosen, not his chosen. Not emilokan (my turn), but awa lokan (our turn), in fact, gbogbo wa lokan (all of us).”

He also criticised the inclusion of Nyesom Wike, a PDP member and current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, in the APC-led government, questioning his loyalty and the legitimacy of such a move.

“What is Wike doing in our government? If he’s going to leave the PDP, he should leave. If we’re doing a government of national unity, you deal with the party, not individuals. The party is what we vote for — not Bola Tinubu but APC; not Atiku but PDP; not Peter Obi but Labour Party.”

Audu’s resignation letter, dated June 8, criticised the APC’s political trajectory and warned against what he described as a deliberate silencing of opposition voices. In a follow-up statement, he clarified that while he does not support the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he would not lend himself “as an instrument to reduce Nigeria to a one-party state.”

“If we now begin to silence or crush opposition simply because we have the upper hand, then we are no different from the very system we once criticised under Obasanjo in 2003,” he said.

Politics

VIDEO: How Peter Obi Betrayed Me – Kenneth Okonkwo In New Interview

Published

3 days ago

June 14, 2025

Editor

Veteran actor and ex-spokesperson of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Kenneth Okonkwo, has accused former presidential candidate, Peter Obi, of betrayal in the wake of internal party disputes.

In a viral interview with Symfoni which started trending on Saturday, Okonkwo, who officially exited the Labour Party in February 2025, revealed that Obi went against his advice and returned to support the embattled Julius Abure-led faction of the party, despite alleged warnings.

According to him, Obi was misled by LP executives who claimed that the Independent National Electoral Commission had recognised them.

He said, “Any politician that knows what he’s doing cannot be betrayed by another. If there is anybody that betrayed the other, I can say it emphatically that Peter Obi betrayed me.

“The Julius Abure-led LP members lied to Obi that the Independent National Electoral Commission had accepted them and Obi surreptitiously went back to them but I told him: ‘Sir, you have made a public statement on integrity and even if INEC has accepted them, that is not a criterion for you to go back and start dealing with them because they have shown that they are not democratic. If you go back to them, they will destroy your political career and everything you have said about integrity will die.’”

He said that despite privately urging Obi not to align with a group he described as “undemocratic” and “agents of the government,” Okonkwo said Obi went ahead to publicly endorse them.

“I told Obi that these people had become agents in the hands of the government to destabilise him. What they did was absolutely illegal and unconstitutional, I told him that if he went back to them, I wouldn’t join him in doing so.

“Thereafter, I called all the people that were in the inner circle and told them the same thing about what Obi was trying to do. I told them he wanted to go back with the Abure people and if he did, I wouldn’t go back with him because I do not swallow back my words.

“And after saying all those things, within like 72 hours, Obi went back to Abure’s office to publicly endorse them and while he was there talking to them, one of the leaders in that executive sent me the video to mock me that the person I was fighting for against them has come to their office to endorse them.

“It was when INEC dissociated itself from Abure that Obi came out to start acting neutral but I told him he could not be neutral and something had to be done,” he added.

The Labour Party has been embroiled in a prolonged leadership crisis, with opposing factions laying claim to the party’s national structure.

The Abure-led faction has faced allegations of financial mismanagement and anti-democratic practices, which critics say contradict the party’s reformist image.

Okonkwo, a known loyalist of Obi’s political ideology, cited these irregularities as his reason for quitting the party earlier in the year.

Watch video below:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1933867577651925202https://twitter.com/i/status/1933867577651925202

Politics

Amaechi Slams Tinubu’s Policies In Fresh Outburst

Published

4 days ago

June 12, 2025

Editor

Former Minister of Transportation and two-time governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, has asked the coalition opposition to kick President Bola Tinubu out of office if Nigeria is to escape its deepening economic crisis.

In a no-holds-barred interview with the BBC, Amaechi, a founding member and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, lamented the country’s deteriorating condition and signalled his willingness to help forge a new opposition coalition to rescue the nation.

“People are dying. People are starving. I myself am feeling the effects of hunger,” he said, painting a grim picture of life under the current administration.

Amaechi’s statement comes in the wake of the APC’s recent endorsement of Tinubu as its sole presidential candidate for 2027, a move Amaechi openly questioned.

While reiterating his loyalty to the party, he warned that fidelity to a political platform should never come at the cost of national conscience.

“If the government is failing the country, you don’t just go along because you’re in the same party. You know that’s not right,” he stated emphatically.

Though he stopped short of confirming a 2027 presidential bid, the former minister said the option remained on the table.

“Certainly, I believe I can make a meaningful contribution,” he added, hinting that his political journey may not yet be over.

He spoke of widespread poverty, spiralling food insecurity, and daily tragedies that now dot the national landscape.

Reflecting on his years as Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Amaechi lamented that the number of out-of-school children then pegged at 10 million, had since ballooned.

The economic hardship, he said, had also deepened insecurity.

“The Boko Haram insurgency is not just a religious crisis. Many of those involved are driven by desperation and hunger,” he asserted, linking terrorism, banditry, and kidnapping to a broader socioeconomic collapse.

Amaechi’s declaration added momentum to an emerging political realignment.

Talks were already underway among key opposition figures, including Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, as they explored the possibility of a unified front against Tinubu in 2027.

Even ex-Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and once a key Tinubu ally had signalled interest in backing an opposition alliance.

But as opposition forces stir, the ruling party continues to absorb defectors, prompting fears of Nigeria drifting toward a one-party state, a scenario Amaechi warned could undermine democracy and silence dissent.

“We’re thinking that if we come together and win the election, the country will certainly witness change,” he said, suggesting an urgent need for a credible alternative.