Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
Angry youths from the nine states of the Niger Delta region have threatened to embark on a massive protest to shut down activities at the National Assembly and various Nigerian High Commissions in the United States and the United Kingdom over the freezing of the accounts of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
They said the decision to move against the National Assembly and the nation’s foreign missions is to put a final stop to the deliberate act of wickedness against the region and prompt the international community’s to prevail on President Muhammadu Buhari to take decisive action on the inability of the NDDC to fund the payment of scholarships of hundreds of indigenes of the region studying abroad on the sponsorship of the commission.
Speaking to newsmen after a meeting with various youth groups involved in the planned protest in Abuja, Sunday Frank-Oputu noted that though they were saddened by the action of the National Assembly members to frustrate the NDDC and turn indigenes of the region studying abroad to beggars, the angry youths of the region have decided to take the battle to them in Abuja and chase them out until they unfreeze the account of the commission so as to meet up with its commitments.
The youths, he said, have given the National Assembly 48 hours to unfreeze all NDDC or face the wrath of Niger Delta youths.
“If they refuse to unfreeze the NDDC account, we are going to take over the National Assembly. Without fear of any contradiction, we are going to mobilise from all the states in the Niger Delta and we are going to take over the National Assembly in a very peaceful but stubborn manner. It is to ensure that these National Assembly members, who feel without them no other person, will exist, to conform to the tenet of democracy,” he said
Oputu lamented that COVID-19 has had adverse effects on the people of the region adding that many families have been turned to beggars to pay school fees of their wards on NDDC scholarship in foreign countries.
He wondered why the leadership of the National Assembly that has declared that it is ready to support the policies of President Buhari would be the same fighting to stop the forensic audit of the NDDC ordered by the president.