Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) has condemned the bloody attacks by state security agents on the home of Yoruba Freedom Fighter, Sunday Adeyemi alias Igboho, reiterating its solidarity with Afenifere and the South West.
This was contained in a communique issued at the end of an extraordinary meeting of PANDEF on Thursday and Friday in Abuja.
The communique was signed by South South National Chief (Dr.) E. K. Clark, and
PANDEF National Chairman, Senator Emmanuel Ibok Essien.
PANDEF condemned “the brutal and bloody midnight raid on the residence of a Yoruba Rights Activist, Sunday Adeyemo, also known as Sunday Igboho, in the Soka area of Ibadan, Oyo State, by agents of the Department of State Services, DSS, in a Gestapo manner, during which innocent citizens were killed and properties destroyed.
“Stands in solidarity with Afenifere, and the South-West people, on this matter and calls on Mr President to immediately call to order the security agencies and cease all forms of flagrant abuse of power,” the communique read in part.
The South South socio-political group also restated its position on the Restructuring of the country, insisting “that Nigeria cannot continue in the present trajectory of a flawed Constitution and undemocratic tendencies of those operating it.”
The group also reiterated the call on the National Assembly “to accelerate the Amendment of the Electoral Act, with provisions for Electronic Voting, before the 2023 General Elections, to guarantee free, fair and credible elections. That anything otherwise remains grossly unacceptable.”
On the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, PANDEF requested the Federal Government “to tell Nigerians the truth of the process which led to the abduction of the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, and his clandestine, forceful repatriation to Nigeria, and hopes that he will be given a fair and open trial.
“Cautions that the reported identification of sponsors of Nnamdi Kanu should not be an alibi to witch-hunt and persecute phantom enemies imagined by the government,” just as it reaffirmed its “solidarity with the people of the Middle Belt Region, in the face of brutal physical attacks and seeming plans to destroy their every means of livelihood, by suspected Fulani gunmen.”
However, following the resumed agitations by militant groups in the Niger Delta region, PANDEF has cautioned the Federal Government “over the now likely deleterious consequences of ignoring, or treating with contempt, the 16-Point Agenda presented to President Muhammadu Buhari, on 1st November 2016.”
It warned that “currently, the youth in the Niger Delta have declared a “Vote of No Confidence” on PANDEF, because it was the leaders of the region that stayed their hand when, in frustration, they had decided to cripple the national economy, in 2016.”
It, therefore, warned the Federal Government to, as part of assuaging the growing unrest of the youths, to constitute the board and management of the NDDC, in line with the Act establishing the commission, without any further delay.”
Credit: Nigerian Tribune