By Elo Edremoda, Warri

There is tension in Ugbolokposo community in Uvwie Local Government of Delta State, following alleged misappropriation of N100 million by ‘few elders’.

Chief Benson Anoemuaghan and Emma Atseruboma – in a petition to the Olu of Warri, Ogiame Ikenwoli, accused a prominent chief of planning to ‘seize, intimidate and forcefully install an unpopular leadership in the once peaceful Ugbolokposo’.

The petitioners appealed to Ikenwoli to prevent the crisis in the peaceful community.

“Community executives had always been drawn from the various quarters to ensure fairness and equity. But the reverse is now the case since our best hands are not being projected to take the community to the next level, due to the external unholy interference from the chief in question.”

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Anoemuaghan and Atseruboma said their December 16, 2019, letter, which bordered on the leadership tussle and embezzled fund, was ‘sat upon’ by vested interests.

Both demanded ‘a detailed explanation of perceived financial misappropriation of a N100 million from Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) paid in 2017.

“This has been the real issue tearing the community apart. The N100 million was awarded to us in a judgment against SPDC. The community only got to know about the money in 2019 after the same elders collected it without recourse to the community.

“It took the intervention of some of us to arrest the crises that would have happened when the news got to the community and people asked for how the money was spent.

“Not a kobo was brought to the community and attempts to get to the root of this issue have been resisted. We require your intervention in this regard to ensure justice is not only done, but seen to have been done to all parties.”

By Mike Odiegwu, Port Harcourt

Residents of Ngo community in Andoni Local Government of Rivers State have appealed to Governor Nyesom Wike to reopen their general hospital, which was shut in February owing to insecurity.

President of the National Union of Andoni Students (NUAS) Efuk Festus, during a tour of the hospital on Wednesday, lamented that the facility had been overtaken by weed and rodents.

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It was gathered doctors posted fled the area following insecurity, especially kidnapping.

Festus said: “Our general hospital has been locked since February; grasses have overtaken it and it is sad because the people cannot access medical help when they fall ill.

“We beg Governor Wike to reopen the facility because our people are suffering. This is the seventh month this hospital has been shut, we heard doctors have been posted here but we are yet to see them.”

Efforts to reach the Commissioner for Health, Prof. Princewill Chike, were unsuccessful as he did not respond to calls and text messages sent to his phone.

Our Reporter

Executive Director of Foundation for Partnership Initiative in the Niger Delta (PIND), Dara Akala, has stated the Niger Delta region needs innovative approaches to skills development that will contribute to economic and growth post COVID-19 pandemic.

Akala said unemployment is probably the most significant development challenge for government at national and sub-national levels, including the Niger Delta region as the world battles with the COVID-19 pandemic.

He stated this during a virtual roundtable with the theme: “Re-imagining youth skills development programme and job creation for positive impact in post-COVID-19 economy” by the Foundation.

He attributed lack of access to economic activities to unemployment in the Niger Delta, which according to him, is a driver of conflict and youth restiveness in the region.

“As a matter of fact, the region has recorded some of the highest rates of unemployment in the country and in 2018 for example, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Akwa Ibom State reported the highest rate of unemployment,” the PIND Foundation Executive Director said.

“This stood at 37.7 per cent, followed by Rivers State with 36.4 per cent, Bayelsa 32.6 percent and Abia State 31.6 percent and so on and forth. And this was before the advent of COVID-19 pandemic.”

Quoting the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Akala said COVID-19 has been described as the most severe crisis since World War 11.

He added with a 30.4 per cent economic shrink in Nigeria this year as projected by International Monetary Fund (IMF), the jobless rate already at an average of about 23 per cent is expected to climb even higher.

The Niger Delta region would not be left out of this worsening unemployment situation, he said.

Speaking on the intervention by PIND to address youth unemployment, he stated it came up with Niger Delta Youth Employment Pathway (NDYEP) in 2017.

“This project that we started in 2017 to address the issues of youth job readiness, work force development and jobs creation are being piloted in three states of Abia, Akwa Ibom and Rivers.

“We focus on few sectors that were pre-selected: ICT is one of them and renewables, construction, agriculture and other emerging growth sectors showing potential for youth employment,” Akala explained.

According to him: “In the pilot phase, NDYEP has enrolled and delivered short-term technical, soft skills training and job/enterprise linkages to over 4,500 youth while over 1,300 youth who successfully completed the program have been supported to transition into internship placements, waged employment and entrepreneurship/self-employment.”

He explained that NDYEP is an innovative model designed not just to train but prepare youths living in the rural areas but also women and persons living with disability with market relevant skills for securing sustainable jobs.

On the motives behind the roundtable, Akala disclosed that meeting was organized by PIND with support from Ford Foundation to share the key features and learning from the NDYEP model and seek collaboration for demand driven job creation programming with state governments in the Niger Delta towards addressing prevalent youths’ unemployment in the region.

He said the Foundation sought to build knowledge and understanding on current approaches towards youth skills development and regional action to address post-COVID-19 youth unemployment dynamics.

Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on job creation and youth employment, Afolabi Imuokhuede, stressed it takes a collective effort of all stakeholders within the region, government and others to tackle the challenges of addressing unemployment in Nigeria and the Niger Delta.

Director General of the BRACED Commission, Joe Keshi, asked policymakers to step up and address the most important challenges like unemployment and the growth of the private sector especially as the world enters the fourth industrial revolution.

 

 

Frank Ikpefan, Abuja

States and communities outside the Niger Delta where oil and gas deposits have been found in commercial quantities in recent times will experience the same extensive environmental damage as the region if current legislative and institutional structures are not reviewed.

This was one of the major areas of consensus reached at a two-day webinar organised by the National Coalition on Gas flaring and Oil spills in the Niger Delta (NACGOND) to examine urgent issues around the escalating incidence of oil spills with regard to their impact on the environment and the long-term socio-economic health.

The theme of the event in which over seventy media and civil society representatives from across the country participated was “National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) Amendment Bill (2018): Framing Pathways to Presidential Assent”.

Participants focused on the urgent need for presidential assent to the Bill that will give additional powers and jurisdiction to NOSDRA, as the country’s major environmental regulator so that it can deal effectively with current and future oil spill incidents, including those outside the Niger Delta.

The serious environmental plight of the Niger Delta is underscored by the fact that there are over 2, 000 oil spills in different parts of the region, which have not yet been cleaned.

The presentations by two environmental scholar-activists – Dr Tubodenyefa Zibima of the Political Science Department of Niger Delta University and Dr Sam Kabari of the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD)- analysed the specific reasons for the President’s initial refusal to sign off on the bill, which include sections of the bill usurping the powers of the Minister for Petroleum Resources; conflicting roles and responsibilities of designated regulatory agencies in the oil and gas sector; and concerns that the financial implications of the legislation will over-burden the industry.

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It was agreed passage of the NOSDRA Bill should be a critical priority for the country because the lack of a fully empowered agency to manage oil spills is the major cause of the environmental damage that has defined the operations of the industry since the first oil find at Oloibiri, Bayelsa State in 1958.

According to Father Edward Obi, Convener of the webinar: “Other countries which have effective mechanisms for tackling oil spills have fully empowered and resourced institutions to take charge of this important responsibility. Nigeria cannot be different. We need a NOSDRA with adequate teeth to do its job”.

It will be recalled the previous effort to make the legislation a reality was truncated as President Muhammadu Buhari declined assent after the two chambers of the national Assembly had passed it.

The current NOSDRA Act gives the agency responsibility for “surveillance and enforcing compliance with “all existing environmental legislation and the detection of oil spills in the petroleum sector.”

But the agency is hamstrung because it has no powers to deal with some categories of spills and it has to depend on the equipment and logistics of the oil companies it regulates to access and remediate certain sites and spills.