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BENIN CITY - Some ex-militants in Edo state yesterday condemned the summit organized by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for former militants in the state over the weekend saying that their exclusion from such an all important summit may scuttle the temporary peace in the region.
In a statement in Benin yesterday, signed by a former commander of one the militant camps in Ajakurama, Siemens Nisor they also condemned the Edo State Oil and Gas Producing Areas Development Commission (EDSOGPADEC) which they said is an ally of the NDDC but failed to carry the ex-militant leaders in the state along.
While commending the post-amnesty summit, he said; “It is most unbecoming at this stage of the amnesty programme that ex-militant leaders will begin to attend post amnesty summits only upon second party and we want to warn that this should never repeat itself”. The Guardian gathered that the ex-militants who protested their exclusion were said to have been informed about it from the leadership of Ijaw Youth Council which encouraged them to attend the summit for the overall interest of the region.
“I want the management of NDDC and EDSOGPADEC to note vehemently that one of the things that led to militancy in the state is the unfairness of these interventionist bodies to the Ijaw oil-rich areas in the state demonstrated in the siting of no single projects in the ares and the absence of no single Ijaw person in the employ of these bodies”.
The statement said they should be involved even from the planning stage of such programmes in future.
But when contacted, an official of EDSOGPADEC said staff of the commission were not also carried along I the summit.
“I am surprised that such a thing in this period will be organized and not everybody is carried along in fact I am just hearing that from you that there was a summit of the magnitude involving ex-militants in the state”.
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