Niger Delta leaders say extra $1b for B’Haram discriminatory

Federal Government’s plan to spend additional $1billion Excess Crude Account (ECA) fund in the fight against Boko Haram is not going down well with the Niger Delta region and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
While stakeholders in the region described the approval given by governors— some of whom have dissociated themselves from the decision — as discriminatory, the main opposition party accused the Federal Government of deploying diversionary tactic to cover attempts at “pilfering $1 billion from the ECA “to finance partisan activities.”
In separate statements in Port Harcourt and Abuja, they called on the National Assembly to block the fund and demand complete breakdown of how the money would be spent.
Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike would not condemn release of the $1 billion to tackle Boko Haram but insisted that environmental and security challenges in the Niger Delta far outweighed the North East insurgency.
Wike spoke at the Annual General Meeting of the Okpo Club of Nigeria (Association of Ikwerre Lawyers) in Port Harcourt, where he urged the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government to release the derivation component of the Excess Crude Account to oil-producing states.
The governor also called for release of funds earmarked for tackling environmental degradation and security in the Niger Delta. “Niger Delta environmental problems are as serious as the Boko Haram insurgency,” he noted.
“I am not saying that you should not fight Boko Haram, but if you can get funds from the national Pool to tackle Boko Haram, then you should go to the same pool to get funds to fight environmental problems in Ogoni and other Niger Delta communities,” he said.
In the same vein, a former president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Ledum Mitee, observed that the approval was discriminatory and ought to be reversed, on the basis that government had not deemed it fit to expend such huge resources on the Niger Delta from the ECA.
Mitee told The Guardian that he was disturbed that government that had previously claimed to have defeated the Boko Haram wanted to expend $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account on the same conflict. According to him, it was disturbing that the Federal Government could not fund the Ogoni cleanup and the East-West Road, but would graciously seek $ 1 billion from the ECA to fund Boko Haram fight.

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