Another Letter: Bayelsa Elders Say They're Not Feeling Impact of Jonathan's Government

President Olusegun Obasanjo is the first Nigerian president to
prosecute his Secondary School friend, the man he appointed
Inspector General of Police, a sitting Senate President, his serving
Ministers, etc. But when some "idiots" want to talk on TV and Radio
programmes, they will say Obasanjo do not have the moral right to
write such a letter to President Goodluck Jonathan. How ridiculous!
Now President Jonathan's people have written to him complaining
about the same lack of development:
"Whilst it takes the federal government the better part of the
century to connect us by road, there exists a vast and expanding
network of oil and gas pipelines across our territory connecting
prolific oil wells to flow stations to export terminals and so on.
In some 40 to 50 years of oil and gas production, the Nigerian
government has in league with the oil companies virtually drilled
the life out of our communities."
The people of the oil producing areas of Bayelsa State have written to
President Goodluck Jonathan, and their complain is that he has not
done anything to correct the wrongs of the past, making life difficult
for them.
The elders therefore raised the alarm on the rising anger and
impatience of the people especially the youths of the areas against
multinational oil companies operating in their domain, and even the
government.
In a letter which was signed by Emeritus Professor E. J. Alagoa and
several others, they declared that in spite of over 50-years of old oil
exploration and 10 percent of nation's oil and 15 percent gas
production, the federal government had failed to deliver on road
construction promised the Nembe communities till date.
The position of the elders which was read at the weekend, argued that
the relationship between Nembe and the country had been one sided
as the territory had only been good for economic exploration,
extraction of their resources and an export terminal for extracted
resources.
"What is the fate of these road projects? How do we get our various
stakeholders to keep faith with their legal and social obligations to
Nembe? Has SPDC tricked us and finally abandoned the Otuegila-
Emago-Oluasiri-Nembe road? Is the Ogbia-Nembe road the only
serious project NDDC intends to do for the entire Nembe communities
with quota that we contribute to the commission which is roughly
N300billion yearly budget? Will the federal government prove to us
through concrete infrastructural evidence that it now cares about the
people and territory of Nembe?"