The Federal Government, through the National Security Adviser Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, announced plans to create a special directorate to address security issues in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
According to The PUNCH, this initiative, undertaken by the NSA’s office, aligns with President Bola Tinubu’s mandate to secure the region.
Ribadu revealed this during the opening of the three-day Niger Delta Stakeholders Summit 2024 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, organized by the Niger Delta Development Commission under the theme ‘Renewed Hope for Sustainable Development in the Niger Delta’.
Represented by his Special Adviser on Energy Security and Niger Delta Affairs, Osarite Ihuoma Grace, Ribadu outlined his vision for the Niger Delta:
“When I was appointed by President Bola Tinubu to the Office of National Security Adviser, established under Section 132 of the Constitution, to provide strategic advice on matters relating to national security, three things were clear in my mind about the Niger Delta region. They are that the Niger Delta must be clearly captured in a more active and determined way as a national security priority in the vision of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR and his Renewed Hope Agenda. That within the President’s broader and long-term national security vision, which includes moving internal security from the current strong posture from kinetic to non-kinetic operations, I will emphasize security from a human and socio-economic development point of view to deepen democratic culture in the Niger Delta. In view of the above two central ideas, I am determined to set up, for the first time in the ONSA, a directorate that shall specialize in the security of the Niger Delta, through which we can, as stakeholders, take a critical look at the peculiar security challenges of the region in a focused and professional way.”
Ribadu’s team, led by Grace, is collaborating with regional governors and the Presidency, and plans to include various stakeholders such as community leaders, traditional rulers, women, youth, students, government security agencies, relevant federal agencies, businesses, civil society, and the media.
The NSA underscored the summit’s theme as fitting given the efforts to realize Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, stating:
“We will have a very robust engagement to support the President articulate a comprehensive presidential policy on Niger Delta security. We should expect that when that fully materializes, the President will most likely personally present policy guidance that will define his security management posture for the sustainable development of the Niger Delta, under the Renewed Hope Agenda.”
Stakeholders, including the Pan Niger Delta Forum and traditional rulers, urged the Federal Government to release all owed funds and arrears to the NDDC, amounting to over N2tn, to enable effective operations.
Jasper Jumbo, National Chairman of the Founding Fathers of the Defunct Oil Mineral Oil Development Commission and the NDDC, emphasized the need for the NSA’s support:
“I want to underscore one important point and I want the representative of the NSA to listen carefully. The NDDC and OMPADEC were set up as a covert government arrangement. I was mandated officially by the various Commanders in-Chief to do the covert research. I wrote the blueprint and I say it openly. The then National Security Adviser, Aliyu Gasau, was first the Coordinator of National Security, to Chief Albert Horsfall. That was how we fought to get these things in place. They helped our people. You (Ribadu) are going to help our people again. I’m saying it with no apologies. I’m saying it as a father in the region. You don’t expect these gentlemen we brought to run the NDDC to run it with their heads. No. From the critical intelligence available to us as founding fathers, it is our investment; no government gave us a dime. It is our intellectual franchise, our patent and we are not begging anybody. Why should the Federal Government own the commission more than N2tn out of the statutory allocations to them?”
NDDC Managing Director, Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, clarified that the event was a stakeholders’ engagement rather than an NDDC summit. He stressed the NDDC’s role as an interventionist agency:
“Being an interventionist agency, we thought we have to intervene in the gap of bringing our people together to discuss the challenges we are facing and also discuss the prospects ahead of us, hence, the theme of the summit was named ‘Renewed Hope for Sustainable Development in the Niger Delta.’ The present administration has Renewed Hope as its mantra, so as the people of Niger Delta we thought it was also ideal to key into the Renewed Hope mantra.”
