From Ben Dunno, Warri
The Egbema Gbaramatu Communities Development Foundation (EGCDF) has declared that they were not part of the June 30 deadline given to the Delta State government by a new militant group, New Delta Avengers (NDA), to address some issues affecting them or they would cripple oil and gas production in the state.
Chairman of the group, Mr. Jude Ukori, who made this declaration in a statement issued in Warri, yesterday, noted that youths of Egbema/Gbaramatu would not get themselves involved in acts capable of wrecking further havoc on the revenue base of the state especially now that the nation was battling to get out of recession.
He explained that his people were knowledgeable enough to appreciate the implications of destroying the nation’s critical assets at this time.
Ukori specifically pointed out that indigenes of Egbema/Gbaramatu desire developmental projects in their communities and would not want to be part of any threat capable of denying them the laudable projects they were expecting from the state government under the guise of agitations.
He said: “My people are aware that the nation cannot afford another round of attacks on critical oil assets at this time again as both the federal and state governments are working tirelessly to revive the economy and any attempt to further compound this would not be in the best interest of the masses.
“We are not unmindful of the fact that any disruption in oil revenue would have a negative impact on the revenues accruing to the federation from which the state government would get its share to embark on series of developmental projects in these communities. As such, my people are not ready to join in any threat to disrupt oil production in the country.
“However, we want to appeal to the state governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, to look at some of the issues raised by this group in their statement in order to be able to address them and nip the threat in the bud before the June 30, 2017 deadline”.
Ukori added: “Having gone through the reasons given for the threat by the group, we discovered that there are some issues that needed to be addressed by the state government towards ameliorating the plights of the oil bearing communities.
“One of such is the issue of under funding of the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) and we urge the state government to adequately fund the commission in order to serve the people of the oil bearing communities better.”