By Ovie Okpare
The youth wing of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) has accused the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration of treating suspected killer herdsmen who are now causing heinous crimes across the country as if they are “untouchable”.
It charged the President Buhari-led Federal Government to urgently tame the rising killings in the country by deliberately prosecuting suspects identified to have carried out such actions irrespective of tribe or religion.
PANDEF’s Deputy National Youth Leader, Olorogun Vincent Oyibode, stated this on Saturday at a world press conference to mark his 46 years birthday anniversary in Udu, Delta State.
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Oyibode said failure by the federal government to act in the face of the deteriorating security in the country will spell doom to unity of the Nigeria state.
He lamented that the people of the Niger Delta region have not been fairly treated by the current government of the All Progressives Congress APC).
The PANDEF youth leader, who also doubled as the Deputy National President of Urhobo Youth Leaders Association (UYLA), frowned at the recent constitution of an interim sole administrator for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
According to him, the setting up of an interim sole administrator was not only an illegality taken too far but a ‘slap on the faces’ already impoverished people of the nation’s oil-rich region.
“The NDDC is an interventionist agency established by an act of the National Assembly with a defined law, today being run by a caretaker committee amongst cabals within and outside the Niger Delta region, first in history, though I stand to be corrected.
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“Is there any Board like the NDDC where the President nominates members who are screened and confirmed by the National Assembly but are not inaugurated? One wonders why the confirmed members have not been inaugurated till now to carry out their primary function of implementing her mandate.
“There is no caretaker committee or sole administrator in the law establishing the NDDC. What is being done right now is illegality, a coup against the Niger Delta people.
“I therefore, call on the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently swear-in the Board members that were confirmed by the National Assembly”, Oyibode stated.
Commenting on the nation’s insecurity, he noted, “Section 33(1) of the Nigerian Constitution provides that “persons living in Nigeria, shall have a right to life and no one shall be deprived intentionally, of his life unless in execution of the sentence of a Court of criminal office of which he has been found guilty.”
“This aspect of the Constitution has been forgotten. There is killing everywhere. The Fulani herdsmen are above the law. They are untouchable, protected by those who are supposed to prosecute them. If the activities of the herdsmen remain unchecked, another civil war may erupt.
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“I therefore call on president Muhammadu Buhari to pass an order to arrest any herdsmen seen with AK 47 guns.”
The PANDEF chieftain at the event commiserate with the family late former National Chairman of PANDEF, Air Cdre. Idongesit Nkanga (retd) who recently died and was buried at his country-home of Ikot Nya, Nsit Ibom Local Government Area of Akwa-Ibom State on Saturday.
Oyibode, however, said that having attain 46 years, he has decided to exit youth activism upon the expiration of his current tenure but will continue for the development of the Niger Delta region.
