Niger Delta renews call for demilitarisation

REPRESENTATIVES of  over 25 youth and ethnic nationality groups and non governmental organisations  from the Niger Delta, rose from a meting in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital yesterday, calling on the Federal Government to end the current militarization  with impunity and unaccountability   that is going  on in  the oil and gas region.  

They alleged that the militarization has   resulted in indiscriminate killing of innocent citizens, arbitrary arrests and rape of women which acording to them, is in contravention of Nigeria ’s obligations under several human rights instruments including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture and CEDAW.

Spokesman for the Port Harcourt meting, Mr. Robinson Uroupa, who is the president of Egbema Movement for Justice, a civil society group, said they will like the oil-producing states to take Nigeria to task on its treatment of the mosaic of minority and indigenous communities that straddle the length and breadth of the Niger Delta where decades of gas flaring and unsustainable oil exploitation had imperilled the environment and destroyed natural livelihood support systems.

Some of the frontline groups that attended the meting include the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Centre for Environment and Human Rights (CENHU), Niger Delta Youth Parliament, Environmental Rights Action (ERA), Eket Professionals, and a number of community-based organisations.

The Secretary of the Central Organising Commiittee of the Niger nDelta Youth Parliament, Mr. Wellman Warri, told our correspondent that the meting stressed that as a step forward, the Nigeria government should seize the opportunity they are offering o make commitments to the setting up of a National Minorities Commission to provide an institutional framework for addressing the problems of minorities and indigenous communities in the Niger Delta and the country at large.

Acording to Mr. Warri, ''the peace process by the central organising committe of our youth parliament is offering the Federal Government the opportunity to take a marked and  critical departure from this style that had increased the crisis of human rights in Nigeria and do some soul searching to  reprieve itself of most of the wrongs it has committed against Niger Delta communities thereby strengthening  its image in the process  as a nation that supports the  liberties of its citizens''.