Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State has urged leadership of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) to focus on issues that border on the region’s development in its advocacy as a voice of the region.
Senator Diri gave the admonition on Wednesday when a delegation of PANDEF led by its new chairman, Amb. Godknows Igali, paid him a courtesy visit in Government House, Yenagoa.
He expressed his administration’s commitment to collaborate with the forum to address issues of development bedevilling the Niger Delta region.
The Bayelsa governor stressed that PANDEF needed the collaboration of governors of the region as well as interventionist agencies such as the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and the proposed South South Development Commission in order for it to succeed.
His words: “PANDEF ought to play a key advocacy role in supporting the South-South Governors Forum. It was a divine arrangement that your meeting in Bayelsa coincided with the just concluded governors meeting.
“We must take issues of our development in our hands before waiting to seek external help. That is why in Bayelsa we are showing the example.”
Diri, who emerged as the new chairman of the South-South Governors Forum on Tuesday, said he would create a desk and assign an official to interface with PANDEF.
The Bayelsa helmsman stated that he had informed his counterparts in the South-South on the need to collaborate to establish a power project for the zone in order to attract investments.
On his administration’s part, he highlighted efforts aimed at facilitating the procurement of an independent power plant to enhance socio-economic activities.
The governor also spoke about infrastructure development to make communities accessible, noting that the ongoing central senatorial road leading to Oporoma, headquarters of Southern Ijaw Local Government Area, would be completed and inaugurated before the end of this year.
According to him, “we are now building a bridge across River Nun to the headquarters of Southern Ijaw Local Government Area that has produced so much crude oil for this country but abandoned because they said the terrain was difficult.
“Now we are proving to them that the terrain can be conquered and that bridge will be ready for commissioning by the end of this year. So we will drive to Oporoma by the end of this year.”
In his remarks, Chairman of PANDEF, Amb. Godknows Igali, affirmed the forum’s support to the South-South Governors Forum to help reposition the body to bring about development and address issues such as fiscal federalism.
He said PANDEF as a voice for the people of the Niger Delta was being strengthened to be heard like other regional groups in the country and to participate in national discourse and relate outcomes to leaders of the region.
Amb. Igali said the body would set up a number of strategic working groups of experts in various fields and study the outcomes with a view to presenting them to the BRACED (an acronym for Bayelsa Rivers Akwa-Ibom Cross River Edo Delta) Commission.
While calling for political support for PANDEF, he congratulated Diri on his emergence as chairman of the South-South Governors Forum.