BENIN - Members of the Niger Delta Technical Committee from Edo, have demanded that 50 per cent of the membership of the local support committee should come from the state’s oil producing communities. The position of the technical committee was made known on Monday by Prof Julius Ihonvbere, when he led other members on a courtesy call to Governor Oserheimen Osunbor, today in Benin.

Ihonvbere said the “heavy presence’’ of representatives of oil-producing communities on the local support committee would help to ensure that their grass-root experiences were brought to bear on their contributions to the work of the technical committee.

He said the decision to set up the local support committee was informed by the need to utilise all possible outlets to reach the people of the state, particularly those from the oil producing communities. This, he said, was to enable the committee to come up with suggestions to support the technical committee’s work.

Ihonvbere, ex-Special Adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, stated that the technical committee was not out to collate complaints and other grievances.

He said: “What we want is a workable, implementable, visible and viable prescription that will enable the government show that for once, we are in a different era.