- Elders, stakeholders, and a coalition of socio-political and professional groups in the Niger Delta have begun sensitising and mobilising voters in the region to elect a presidential candidate for the 2023 elections.
This followed a series of consultations at various levels across the South-South region, which concluded that the Niger Delta has been bled dry since the beginning of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure and is in dire straits.
Elders, stakeholders and professionals came together to form the Alliance for Rescue of the Niger Delta Region (ARNDR) with the aim of safeguarding and promoting the region’s interests in the February 2023 presidential election.
In a statement yesterday by the spokesman of the coalition, James Komobila, the group said its stand against the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, stemmed from the brazen acts of contempt and deprivation perpetrated against the people of the Niger Delta during the more than seven years of the party’s rule at the national level. She noted that the landmark measures for peace and development in the region, such as the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Presidential Amnesty Programme ( PAP), Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) and the 13 percent natural resource participation enshrined in the 1999 constitution were all initiated, established and implemented when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in power at the centre, while the APC under President Buhari took deliberate steps to undermine them.
