{"id":19813,"date":"2018-07-27T20:11:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T20:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=19813"},"modified":"2018-07-27T20:11:00","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T20:11:00","slug":"niger-delta-youths-want-fg-to-stop-using-nepotism-as-a-factor-for-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=19813","title":{"rendered":"NIGER DELTA YOUTHS WANT FG TO STOP USING NEPOTISM AS A FACTOR FOR DEVELOPMENT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><code><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.newsroom247.com.ng --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/code><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-19311\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"758\" height=\"216\" srcset=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1.jpg 1080w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1-300x86.jpg 300w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1-768x219.jpg 768w, http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sheriff-1-1024x292.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 758px) 100vw, 758px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Niger Delta Youths Environmental\u00a0 has called on the federal government to stop using nepotism as factor in the development of the Niger Delta as well as in the Nigerian government. Below is a c<strong>ommuniqu\u00e9 Issued at the End of the Second Niger Delta Youth Environment Summit held on July 24, 2018 at Eboh Hotel, Oleh, Delta State<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Preamble <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Community Development Advocacy Foundation (CODAF) organized the second edition of the Niger Delta Youths Environmental Summit on July 24, 2018 at Oleh Delta State which focused on the development options for the region. The Niger Delta Youths Environmental Summit was born out of the desire to enhance the capacity of the Niger Delta Youths to constructively question and analyze oil and environmental politics in the region. The objectives are to sensitize youths in the region and strengthen youth coalition for environmental defense through environmental education. The summit was well attended by over 200 participants drawn from the Nine (9) Delta States. Government officials also boycotted the second edition just like they did in the first edition even after much effort to engage them. Lift Above Poverty Organization (LAPO), Yasuni Association, Center for Research in Environmental Resource Management (CREMA), Ecoactors, Eco Assurance and Rural Transformation Centre (EcoTrace) and Development Initiative For Community Impact are some of the Civil Society groups who supported and participated in the summit.<\/p>\n<p>The summit took the form of paper presentations by resource persons drawn from diverse fields, particularly academicians, development workers, Civil Society, the Press, expert panel discussions and musical performance. A feedback mechanism in the form of comments, questions and answers as well as reports from breakout sessions were equally adopted as part of the summit.<\/p>\n<p>In his opening speech, the Executive Director of CODAF, Benin Richard lamented that 70% of the population of the Niger Delta lives below the poverty line with limited amount of disposable income, access to healthcare, clean water, educational attainment,\u00a0 shelter and gainful employment despite the presence of\u00a0 institutions like NDDC, DESOPADEC and the ministry of Niger Delta Affairs created by government to tackle the needs of the region. The Keynote Speaker Professor Irwin Anthony Akpoborie, Director, CREMA noted that the Niger Delta is one of the most oil-impacted ecosystems in the world. He drew attention of participants to the ongoing debate about two contemporary and controversial Bills that are being considered at the National Assembly: Petroleum Industry Bill and the National Water Resources Bill.\u00a0 He identified contentious issues in both Bills and explained why the National Assembly should be urged to ensure that clauses that could have major negative impacts on the environment, welfare, livelihoods and well-being of the indigenous populations of the petroleum and water rich Niger Delta are excised from the Bills before passage.<\/p>\n<p>There was consensus by discussants in two Panels drawn from opinion leaders, leaders in industry, academia, NGOs and Civil Society that despite the establishment of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Niger Delta Ministry and other previous development agencies in the region, the Delta has remained underdeveloped and local indigenous people have seen little if any improvement in their standards of living while suffering serious damage to their natural environment.<\/p>\n<p>Positions articulated by the resource persons, actions and reactions from the representatives of Niger Delta Youths and CSO\u2019s, communities and individuals, during the incisive brainstorming sessions, formed the basis for observations which were made and articulated thus:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Observations<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The perceived and much publicized atmosphere of strife in the Niger Delta Region discourages investment flows to the region. The Niger Delta should be aware of the activities of powerful individual, regional and political groups that stand to gain from perpetuating this myth of a nonexistent atmosphere of strife in order to divert investments from the resource rich Delta to their own regions.<\/li>\n<li>The current structure of the Nigerian state breeds powerful individuals that work against and suffocate the institutions dedicated to the development of the Niger Delta,<\/li>\n<li>Most of the projects being awarded in the Niger Delta are mainly friends and family based, hence this results to the abandonment of projects, the use of substandard materials and overall low adherence to global engineering standard in engineering construction given the unique terrain of the Niger Delta region;<\/li>\n<li>Nepotism and cronyism dominate and negatively impact contract awards and project execution in Niger Delta associated federal projects.<\/li>\n<li>Youths are constantly being excluded from participating in the monitoring and assessment of ongoing development projects. This exclusion of youths negatively impacts project outcomes as well as encourages environmental degradation as illustrated by the controversial deep well disposal of so called and disputed oil field waste in Ozoro community in Delta State.<\/li>\n<li>The Niger Delta environment is bewildered and her resources are controlled by only a few individuals in government who uses resources from the region to develop other parts of the country and leave the people in abject poverty, ecological abuse, social frustration and thereby incriminating the people and make them look as if they are their own problems.<\/li>\n<li>Federal agencies appear to be interested only in resource extraction from the Delta as exemplified by the sorry record of environmental management and degradation of the Ogoni and other parts of the Delta in the presence of the Department of Petroleum Resources and the Federal Ministry of Environment. The Federal Ministry of Mines and Solid Minerals is now emulating these agencies by insisting on licensing sand dredging operations in the Delta without attendant environmental and associated responsibility in environmental management.<\/li>\n<li>Government appears to be introducing more legislation that strips the Niger Delta indigenous populations of their rights to ownership of their God given natural resources and in the process creating avenues for strife.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=16700&amp;ad_type=62&amp;rl=180\" width=\"728\" height=\"90\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/code><\/p>\n<p><strong>Recommendations<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Federal government should encourage and fund local markets so as to use our natural resources to the fullest and therefore discouraging the waste of resources and promote empowerment in the Niger Delta communities,<\/li>\n<li>STOP using nepotism as factor in the development of the Niger Delta as well as in the Nigerian government. We should discourage the award of project execution to unqualified friends and\/or families and encourage competence and performance.<\/li>\n<li>Youths should have a role in projects carried out in their communities; this would lead to the circulation of both financial and natural resources within the communities. It is completely selfish to exclude indigenes from their heritage, from their rights. Such exclusion is rightly perceived as GREED and creates tensions in the Delta,<\/li>\n<li>The capacity of Youths must continued to be strengthen to enhance their understanding of the PIB, gas policy, various environmental policies, national water resource bill for effective engagement with relevant stakeholders.<\/li>\n<li>The ecosystem is our life, destroying it is absolutely nothing less than destroying ourselves and our future generations. Pressure groups and clubs should be formed among the youths to make certain that every natural resource is evaluated, conserved and well fought for.<\/li>\n<li>Government through relevant institutions should make the establishment of data gathering and monitoring systems for natural resources a priority. It is imperative that environmental data collected for decades by oil and gas industry with JVC funds be turned over to state and federal agencies immediately.<\/li>\n<li>Remove unfair, inequitable contentious clauses including those that strip the indigenous peoples of the Niger Delta of their natural ownership of resources, especially water, from any new legislation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/delta-is-working-new-200618-banner-ad-online-234-x-60px-f-4.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-19511\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/delta-is-working-new-200618-banner-ad-online-234-x-60px-f-4.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"3033\" height=\"376\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- www.newsroom247.com.ng --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; The Niger Delta Youths Environmental\u00a0 has called on the federal government to stop using nepotism as factor in the development of the Niger Delta as well as in the Nigerian government. Below is a communiqu\u00e9 Issued at the End of the Second Niger Delta Youth Environment Summit held on July 24, 2018 at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[4929,4928],"class_list":["post-19813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-community-development-advocacy-foundation","tag-niger-delta-youths-environmental"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/youths.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-59z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19815,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19813\/revisions\/19815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}