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Ateke
quits armed struggle, demands justice
By Akanimo
Sampson
bureau chief, Port Harcourt
Leader of the Niger Delta Vigilance, a
militia group, and Mujahid Dokubo - Asari’s rival, Ateke Tom, has
said that he was no longer enthusiastic about mlitia wars in the Niger Delta
area, Nigeria’s main oil and gas producing region.
This is coming at a time when the
militia group is transforming into a commercial security enterprise to police
some of the key oil communities and oil facilities in the region.
To drive the struggle of the peoples of
the Niger Delta for socio - economic and environmental justice, he said
he was currently making broad consultations for the formation of a pressure
group.
Ateke, who was speaking in a telephone
interview with Daily Independent on Tuesday, said, “the Niger Delta
Vigilante is being transformed. We have renounced violence, and we have since
assured and reassured the authorities that we have faith in the on-going peace
process and the disarmament exercise”.
Continuing, he added,” we are determined
to resist fresh eruption of violence and disruption of oil production in the
Rivers State axis of the Niger Delta, by Mobilising community people against
trouble makers”.
According to him, the prevailing
atmosphere of peace has provided the peoples of the Niger Delta with an
opportunity to seek solutions to their problems adding,” On our part, we
have made our demands known to government in the areas of social Justice,
equity and fair play. We have not been making noise about these things because
of our respect for the authorities”.
“In our dealings with Abuja or
Port Harcourt, we have always emphasise that we believe that the economic
objectives of the 1999 constitution should underscore the control of the
national economy in such a way as to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and
happiness of every citizen on the baris of social Justice and equal
station”.
He was not yet done. “We are also
in support of the agitation for true federalism. As a group, we have come to
the inescapable conclusion that federalism thrives on the control of resources
by the federating units who are obliged to remit a mutually acceptable
honorarium to the centre”, he said.
For him, Nigeria’s federalist
experiment falls far short of the ideal, pointing out that in the case of the
Niger Delta area, the Federal Government allegedly appropriated all the mineral
resources for the development of other parts of the country.
“The result has been abject
poverty, environmental terrorism, economic and political marginalisation and
worsening social frustrations in the Niger Delta. This is the reality the new
pressure group we are about to form will seek to reverse”, he added.
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