Nigeria: Delta leaders meet president with demands

By Rafiu Ajakaye

LAGOS, Nigeria (AA) - Leaders from across Nigeria’s oil-rich delta region on Tuesday met with President Muhammadu Buhari, urging him to address several issues in bid to build confidence and restore peace to the restive region.

“We presented the president 16 points of demands that we believe could earn both sides some quick wins, and the president received us quite well,” Edwin Clark, leader of the delegation, told reporters after the meeting in the capital Abuja.

The meeting was attended by dozens of influential leaders from the region as well as government ministers and top officials led by Buhari himself.

Clark, an influential figure in the volatile region whom former president Goodluck Jonathan considers his father, said the delegation told the president to, among other requests, withdraw troops from oil-producing communities and concede more oil mining rights (blocs) to locals in the region.

Clark said they also asked Buhari to improve funding for the amnesty program for former militants and allow a maritime university to be established in the region, as approved by Jonathan, the first native of the region to lead Nigeria. Now the government allegedly plans to scrap or downgrade the institution.

“These confidence-building measures are necessary to engender trust in a region that has grown skeptical of dialogue and engagements that have hardly produced tangible results,” said Clark.

In a statement issued after the meeting, the presidential press office urged the regional leaders to work for peace and accountability from their own constituencies, saying no development can take place in such chaotic environment. He also pledged to look into their demands, adding that efforts are ongoing to ease tensions in the region, including retooling the amnesty program.

Attacks by militants have cut national oil production by close to half, further worsening Nigeria’s financial woes in the wake of falling global oil prices.