The Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, has
warned the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government against its plan
to deploy troops under the Operation Crocodile Tears to the Niger Delta region.
IYC said that by deploying troops
to the oil rich region, the Buhari-led Federal Government plans to colonise and
cause chaos in the oil rich region.
Warning that people of Niger
Delta will resist any military exercise in the region, IYC said the Federal
Government should rather send bulldozers to create development in the creeks
and not the Military.
President of the body, Roland
Oweilaemi Pereotubo, in a statement sent to DAILY POST by his Media Aide,
Alaowei Cleric said military drill in the Southern part of the country is not
the panacea to agitation in the region.
Pereotubo said rather than embark
on Military drill, Buhari should employ the strategy of negotiation as a means
of resolving agitations.
He said, “The plan by the
Nigerian armed forces to extend its ongoing military drill in the South East to
the South South and South West is a declaration of war against defenceless
Southern Nigerians. The so-called ill-conceived military exercise which has
already gotten international condemnations, if carried out in the peaceful
Niger Delta region, will be seen as an act of belligerent against hapless
Nigerians. Nothing can justify the military to carry out such provocative
exercise, especially now that the Federal Government has started implementing
its promises to the people.”
Pereotubo viewed the exercise as
a ploy by the Government to, “colonise the people of Southern Nigeria through
the instrumentalities of the nation’s military bellipotent in order to
establish a theocratic state.”
He said, “No Southern part of the
country is in need of a destructive military drill which consequences is pain
and anguish. To us, the plan is to cause chaos in the Southern States; declare
state of emergency and apparently send the northern military warlords to
colonise us in the name of interim military administration in the troubled
States.
Niger Delta people will resist
any attempt to cause crisis in the region. We don’t need military drill. What
we want is development. Let the Government send bulldozers to the creeks to
carry out developmental projects.
“The money that the military want
to waste in this fruitless exercise should be channeled on developmental
projects in the region. No previous military exercise has ever yielded any good
result apart from causing mayhem on the people. We do not expect any good thing
to come out from this planned exercise. It will only end up causing an untold
havoc on the lives and property in the region.”
Pereotubo warned that no amount
of military drill will make the people to give up their agitations.
Maintaining that restructuring
remains the solution to Nigeria’s problems, IYC said, “The solution to the
agitations in Southern Nigeria is restructuring, true federalism and
self-determination in line with international best practices. Previous
Governments had adopted military approach to address the Niger Delta crisis but
they all failed.
“President Buhari cannot win the
battle by the trigger. Dialogue remains the best option to end all forms of
agitations in Southern Nigeria. The Federal Government will be inflicting a
devastating havoc on the nation’s crawling economy should it allows the
military to carry out its belligerent drill in region.
“If any part of this country
requires military drill, it is the North East. Let the military carry out its
drill in the Lake Chad Basin where Boko Haram sects have killed and chased out
oil workers at ease from their drilling sites.
“The major threats to national
security are the Boko Haram sects and the murderous Fulani herdsmen. While the
military was quick to illegally and unconstitutionally declare armless IPOB
members as terrorists for peacefully agitating for their rights, it becomes so
dumb and voiceless to the gruesome genocide being carried out by the killer
Fulani herdsmen against Nigerians.
”President Buhari should direct
his war-mongering and bloodthirsty armed forces to carry out their military
exercise in places the herdsmen have being massacring Nigerians without
provocation. These dangerous human species have being moving with dangerous
weapons in the name of self-defense with which they have being using to commit
genocide in Nigeria with impunity.
“In spite of the atrocities this
dangerous group who have been declared as the number three most dangerous
terrorists Organisation in the world, has committed against human race in
Nigeria, the FG has not declared them as a terrorist group in Nigeria.
“The world should not give deaf
ears to the recent happenings in Nigeria. The crisis in the land is no longer
an internal affairs of the Country. Nigeria needs an urgent regional
intervention to save the Country from the imminent precipice. While the dust of
insurgency caused by the military in the South Eastern part of the Country is
barely coming down, the Government is regrettably planning another military
drill in the other Southern regions.”
Pereotubo also called on world
bodies to prevail on Buhari to suspend the Military exercise in the Southern
part of the country.
“We are calling on the UN, EU,
AU, ECOWAS and the world super powers to prevail on President Muhammadu Buhari
to suspend his military exercise in Southern Nigeria,” he added.
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