Views: Visits 10 Milliand Dikio By Emem Idio, Yenagoa The Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP, Colonel Milland Dixon Dikio, Retd, says the era of servicing contractors and their cronies are gone for good. He said that the PAP will no longer patronize contractors at the expense of the real owners of the programme which are the ex-agitators, just as it will no longer fund the scholarship of students in areas that are not of comparative advantage to the region. Dikio stated this on Friday in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, during a parley with the leadership of the first phase of the PAP.
Group Accuses Northerners Of Hijacking Niger Delta Amnesty Programme
Also, the group accused some northern forces of attempting to derail the Amnesty Programme for some selfish reasons.
by SaharaReporters, New York
May 12, 2021
An advocacy group, Niger Delta Liberation Movement (NDLM), has described the ongoing forensic audit of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) as an effort in futility that will lead nowhere giving that it has lasted beyond the stipulated time of three months.
Niger Delta Minister, Godswill Akpabio recently hinted that the forensic audit of the NDDC, which he had earlier said would be concluded and the report submitted before April, would now be concluded in July, following which the Governing Board would be put in place.
Southsouth, separatist agitation and national security Mustapha Temidayo
Deputy Political Editor
The escalating security situation in the Southeast appears to have cast its long shadow on the security situation in the Southsouth, given the historical and cultural links between the two geo-political zones. Four of the six states in the Southsouth were part of the defunct Eastern Region until May 5, 1967, when former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon carved out 12 states from the then four regions, as part of the strategy to counter the rebellion by the then administrator of the Eastern Region, Lt-Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu.
Today, similar separatist unrest in the Southeast has made the region the country’s latest zone of insecurity. The resurgence of the separatist bid stems from a perception that the region is marginalised under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari; particularly the perceived heavy-handed policing by security forces that
Eromosele Abiodun writes that apart from investment in security assets, partnership with Inter Regional Coordination Centre, Yaoundé, training of cadets to man various security platforms in the Lagos-Bayelsa coastal corridor will boost maritime security and the deep blue project
Over the years Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea were known to be the hotbed of piracy and maritime crimes and criminality. Put simply, Nigeria was rated number one in pirates attack in the Gulf of Guinea by the International Maritime bureau (IMB) last year.
The IMB is a specialised department of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The IMB’s responsibilities include in fighting crimes related to maritime trade and transportation, particularly piracy and commercial fraud, and in protecting the crews of ocean-going vessels.
nddc
The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) and ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta have given the Federal Government one-month ultimatum to inaugurate a substantive board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) or risk total shut down of the region.
National President of the Ijaw Youths Council Worldwide, Timothy Igbifa, who stated this in an interview in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, said if the group did not get a positive response from the Federal Government, it would shut down oil production and the entire region.
Igbifa, who presided over an expanded meeting of stakeholders and leaders of ethnic nationalities in Port Harcourt, Rivers State at the weekend, stressed the need to constitute a substantive board of the NDDC, among five other demands.