Be careful with Niger Delta issues, Clark warns FG
An elder statesman of the Federal Republic, Chief Edwin Clark, has called on the Federal Government to treat with the utmost sensitivity, issues regarding the Niger Delta region.
Clark cautioned the government to refrain from implementing the rumoured plan to scrap the Presidential Amnesty Programme, holding that taking such a step would unsettle the tenuous peace existing within the region.
Clark gave the warning at a virtual press conference on Monday, recounting that 11 days ago he cautioned Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo to walk on eggshells with regard to Niger Delta Affairs.
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“I have cause to, again, advise or warn the Federal Government to desist from anything that will truncate the fragile peace that we have in the Niger Delta region.
“I say this because, just yesterday (Sunday), rumours were rife that the four-man investigative panel headed by A. A. Lawal, set up by the Federal Government through the Office of the National Security Adviser, Maj. Gen. Babagana Monguno (retd.), to look into the activities of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, had recommended the scrapping of the programme by December this year.
“If this is true, it will be an epic example of what we say in local parlance ‘trouble dey sleep, yanga go wake am’. This is not a threat; it is stating the obvious of what will actually happen.”
The former Federal Commissioner for Information and veteran leader of the Ijaw said that he was gutted when he received the news about the proposal by the Federal Government.
Clark further expressed his disappointment that a region that has served as the wealth basin of the country and it’s economy could be treated with such levity and disregard.
