Clean Up Niger Delta Or Forget Our Votes, Stakeholders Tell Tinubu

Stakeholders in the Niger Delta region have called on President Bola Tinubu to clean-up the polluted Niger Delta environment or forget the votes of the people in the forthcoming 2027 general elections.
The stakeholders made the declaration yesterday in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, during a regional dialogue on Niger Delta, which was organised by Miideekor Environmental Development Initiative (MEDI).
The dialogue, with the theme: “Niger Delta Environmental Cleanup: Issues and Ways Forward”, was attended by environmental right activists, traditional rulers and community leaders from across the region.
In his keynote speech, former commissioner for Environment in Baylesa State, Hon. Iniruo Wills, said there was the need for the people of the region to be mobilised to vote only for candidates who have caused a cleanup or have a Niger Delta-wide stakeholder-agreed programme and personally-signed commitment to cleanup the ecologically-bombed Niger Delta region.
Wills said: “For president and governors’ elections, Niger Deltans should be vigorously sensitized and mobilized to vote only for candidates who have caused a cleanup or have a Niger Delta-wide stakeholder-agreed programme and personally-signed commitment to cleanup the ecologically-bombed Niger Delta region.

“Don’t vote for any candidate or charlatan who cannot show you a cash-backed path to a remediated, regenerated and ecologically restored Niger Delta region. The CSO and E-NGO community should set to work on the strategy and execution for just such a campaign, pronto. That is a test for us to pass and hold ourselves accountable by.

“No forward looking country or sensible government in the world runs its petroleum or minerals sector the way Nigeria does. Seventy – actually over a 100 – years of drilling, plumbing and polluting, without cleaning up after you.”

In his remarks, the traditional ruler of Aiyetoro community in Ondo State, Oba Oluwambe Ojagbohunmi, described the action as an effective strategy to get the voices of the people of Niger Delta region heard.

“It is an effective strategy to get our voices heard. So, for us to give them what they want, they must give us what we want. This is the only time we can get them to do this,” Ojagbohunmi said.

In his welcome address, MEDI’s executive director, Akpobari Celestine, said it was regrettable that those who polluted the Niger Delta environment have abandoned it in the name of divestment.

“There is nothing left of the Niger Delta environment. And to make matters worse, people that polluted our environment have ran away in the name of divestment. No matter how you sugarcoat it; no matter what you call it. There is nothing good in divestment when the mess you created in an area is there. What kind of thing is that?”, Celestine said.