WARRI (Delta) – A group under the aegis of Niger Delta Indigenous Movement For Radical Change, has called on President Goodluck Jonathan to appoint an Ijaw man as the Group Managing Director of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The group in a press statement signed by its President, Nelly Emma; Secretary, John Sailor and Public Relations Officer, Stanley Mukoro, urged the Federal Government to appreciate the efforts of the Ijaw people to the nation by appointing one of them as the GMD of NNPC.
“We want the Petroleum Minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke to continue to protect Niger Deltans, especially the Ijaws working in NNPC but being deprived in many ways. The Ijaws working in NNPC are being threatened on a daily basis; they are being marginalized and this is why we are urging the Federal Government to appoint an Ijaw man as the new GMD of NNPC.”The group said.
According to the group, former President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed somebody from the West as GMD of NNPC during his tenure, adding that the late President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua appointed a Northerner as GMD of NNPC, and implored President Jonathan to move now to appoint an Ijaw man to pilot the affairs of the NNPC.
Meanwhile, the group has warned the former Defence Minister, General Theophilus Danjuma to mind his utterances concerning ex-militants in the Niger Delta region, while accused him of not acquiring his several oil blocs through due process.
It called on President Jonathan and Minister of Petroleum, Mrs. Alison-Madueke to probe the oil blocs of the erstwhile Defence Minister.
According to the group, “we will not hesitate to move that they should be revoked and failure to do that, we will blow them up because they belong to us.”
While accusing General Danjuma of allegedly working hand-in-hand with multinational oil companies to short-change indigenous oil and gas companies in the Niger Delta region that have invested fortunes on capacity building as a result of their high hope on the Nigerian Content Law.
“We know the dirty roles General Danjuma and others from the North have been playing with multinational oil companies to frustrate the efforts of indigenous oil and gas companies in the Niger Delta region and we are making it loud and clear that we are tired and sick of the likes of General Danjuma who do not know the colour of crude oil, yet they are making life unbearable for the operators of our indigenous oil and gas firms and the people of the region in general,” the group said.
President Goodluck Jonathan.
