Niger Delta leaders, under the aegis of Pan-Niger Delta Forum, have appealed to the Federal Government to address their 16-point agenda without delay.
They said if the government failed to do this before November 1, 2017 they would withdraw from the peace negotiation the government was having on how to bring lasting peace to the oil-rich region.
The National Leader/Convener of PANDEF, Chief Edwin Clark, who addressed at a press conference in Abuja on Monday on behalf of the group, said even though acting President Yemi Osinbajo had given a commitment after his visit to the region, the government had failed to take steps towards the implementation of the region’s 16-point demand.
This, he said, had been putting the Niger Delta leaders under immense pressure from the people of the region.
Clark, who was a former federal commissioner for information, was accompanied during the briefing by political and traditional leaders from the area.
He said it would be wrong to tag the people of the region as troublemakers, adding that they were been pushed to the wall by government’s lack of commitment.
He said, “I wish to urge the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, implement the pronouncements made by the acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, during his fact-finding visits to the Niger Delta region, and to set up, without delay, the Federal Government Dialogue Team to engage PANDEF, towards resolving the pending issues contained in the forum’s 16-point demand on behalf of the people of the Niger Delta region, by or before November 1, 2017 (one year anniversary of our meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari).
“Human endurance has a limit beyond which one cannot predict what the outcome will be. We submitted a 16-point demand to Mr. President on November 1, 2016, and we had expected that by its next anniversary, the 16-point agenda would have been comprehensively sorted out.
“If, at the expiration of the November 1, 2017 ultimatum, the Federal Government fails and/or refuses to accede to these lawful and legitimate demands of the Niger Delta people, PANDEF may consider pulling out of the ongoing peace process in the Niger Delta.”