The Ijaw Youths Congress on Thursday warned the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government not to contemplate arresting former President Goodluck Jonathan over the ongoing probe of massive fraud and embezzlement alleged to have taken place under his administration.
The youths, who converged at the Wellington Hotel Effurrun, Delta State, for the 2016 annual Major Isaac Boro anniversary celebration with the theme, “The ideals of Adaka Boro and the renewed militancy in the Niger Delta: The way forward,” criticised the present administration for limiting its anti-corruption campaign only to the Jonathan regime.
The IYC president, Udengs Eradiri, urged the APC-led Federal Government to probe the Halliburton bribery case under ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, if it wanted Nigerians to take its anti-corruption campaign seriously.
On the renewed militancy in the region, Udengs, said the opening of the Maritime University, Okerenkoko, Delta State, for academic activities was the first condition for a roundtable discussion with the Federal Government towards ending ongoing militants’ onslaught in the region.
Eradiri said, “People have started discussing. There was a meeting in Abuja yesterday (Wednesday) but I told them that such a meeting would not work.
“If they want us to talk, they must first open the Maritime University and start admitting students, then we would now sit and talk. The same issues for which Adaka Boro and Ken Saro-Wiwa were killed are the same issues the Avengers are raising.
“There are no Avengers anywhere. Settle these issues and the avengers would fizzle away.”
Prominent rights activist, Tony Uranta, who also spoke at the occasion said, “Isaac Boro and Ken Saro-Wiwa died fighting for the emancipation of the Niger Delta, later we had Asari Dokubo, Tompolo and others. But because Tompolo was taken out, new faces have come up.”
Uranta called on Buhari to reassure Niger Delta youths that the amnesty programme would not be cancelled if the peace in the region was to be sustained, noting that there were many beneficiaries who had not gone on training.
He said the cancellation of the programme would further throw the region into another rounds of militancy which would negatively affect the nation’s already dwindling economy.
