The Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State; a former governor of the state, Emmanuel Uduaghan; and the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, and others have condemned highly the lack of attention given to the Niger Delta region, especially been the mainstay of the economy of the nation.

They lamented that one of the painful aspects of the neglect was a denial of the region of its water space, and free access to the oil business in the country, therefore advocating for a new form and ways to develop the area.

The stakeholders made the expression at the Delta Online Publishers Forum, 2021, Annual Lecture, with a Theme: Niger Delta Economy: Building A New Face For The Region”, on Friday in Asaba, Delta State capital.

Speaking at the event, the guest speaker, Former Governor of Delta State, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, condemned the idea of the continuous tagging of the region as a “Red Zone”, by the international community.

He said, “The Niger Delta region has been so hostile to investors and we cannot have the region industrialized until we change our attitude. We must go back to our communities to plead with them to be friendly to investors.

“Though, the activities in the area was mainly fueled by the actions of the oil companies for not considering the plights and needs of the people, especially in the diversification of the economy of the area.

“The region can be moved from its present underdeveloped phase to a better one, where human capital development is highly carried along with other indices of human development.
“We must encourage people to have production facilities. It may not be very large but let’s encourage small industries. We must also encourage big industries to also come by creating an enabling environment”
He said it was not right for offshore workers in the Niger Delta to take their taxes somewhere else out the region.

On his part, the Governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa, called on the continuous development of the youths in the region through skilled acquisition, stating that the states in the region had agreed to work more closely to have a homogenous drive to improve the lives of the people and grow the economy.

Also, the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, said one of the areas for a new economy to be built in the region, was to develop sources and represent the diversity of facts of the people they serve, “particularly there is a lot of diversity in the form of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious character of the region”
Speaking further, the Interim Administrator of the Niger Delta Development Commission, represented by his Media Director, Mr Chijioke Amu-Nnadi, said what the commission was doing would help to properly situate the region and get it focused for all-round development.

He said the commission was established to develop, stabilise and make life good for the people in the Niger Delta region, as her dream policy after the forensic auditing, is to speed up the development of the region.

A renowned activist, Ms Annkio Briggs, and other speakers stated that the region was geographically positioned and endowed with human capital resources.

Earlier, in his welcome address, the Chairman of the forum, Mr Emmanuel Enebeli said the 2021 theme became necessary as the area which produces the wealth of the nation, over the years had not shown signs of development, as they had not gotten the true value of the black Gold that is in their communities.

From the Punch Newspaper