Asaba — Labour leaders in the South-South zone of the country will take the battle for resource control before the National Dialogue coming up next year and the mobilization towards achieving the cause has commenced.
Already, labour leaders within the zone said they were already mobilizing towards that direction since President Olusegun Obasanjo announced the constitution of the Governor Ahmed Makarfi committee to work out modalities for the National Dialogue.
Speaking to Vanguard in Asaba yesterday, chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Delta State, Comrade Mike Okeme said "Delta will have a common agenda where we are agitating for resource control for instance, if we go for such conference, we will surely table it. If cocoa, rubber and all the other things that are yardsticks for measuring revenue derivation and what you produce is what you get, then, those of us from the South-South have been agitating and will continue to agitate for a resource control where the people of the region will also benefit because, at the end of the day, the devastating effects is on the people of the Niger Delta where oil exploration that feeds the entire nation is sordid experience. It is the people of the region that suffer the effects.
"So we will continue to agitate for things that will make life more meaningful for us, as I talk to you, we the labour leaders in the zone are communicating, we are already dialoguing and mobilizing. Since the announcement, myself and my colleagues (NLC chairmen) in the zone are talking. We are tabling the issue of resource control in the front burner at the confab, just be rest-assured", he stated.
2007 presidency
On the clamour for presidency coming to the South, the Delta NLC boss said "why not, now they said there is a zoning system, but they, the ruling party which believes in zoning system has suddenly changed, they are making a U-turn because what is happening is that most of the retired generals are coming into the party so that they can make things more difficult for the zoning system.
"But we in the South-South will always say that we also want to be at the helm of affairs of this country, after all, if you look at the history of Nigeria, the military has taken a chunk of it (rule) and under democracy, you are talking about the West, the East and the North, the South-South, he went on, "cannot ever get there so this is an opportunity for us (South-South) to also say let us govern."
He further noted that the coming conference irrespective of the nomenclature it bears "is a conference that will bring Nigeria to international focus."
He, however, warned that different ethnic nationalities should be given the free hands to nominate those who would represent them otherwise "if you hand-pick all the people to the conference and the people so hand-picked are loyal to the presidency, what then do you expect? Allow the people freehand, let the people be asked to select based on their conscience", he said.
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