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?"