The National Leader of Unity House Foundation, UHF, a non-profit advocacy group, focusing on the promotion of peace, good governance and social justice, Wenenda Wali, has asked the Federal Government to use the proceeds of the sale of the moribund oil refineries for the construction of the East West road, whenever it eventually decides to sell them.
Wali, a Niger Deltan, stated this in a statement he issued in reaction to a call on the Federal Government to sell the country’s ailing oil refineries and invest the proceeds in the mining sector, by the Senate Committee Chairman on Finance, Senator Sani Musa.
The good governance advocate, who supports the selling of the refineries that have remained inoperative and have become a conduit and drain pipe for decades, despite gulping billions of dollars for turnaround maintenance, said it that would be the height of injustice if proceeds from their sales is used to develop any other sector other than Niger Delta.
His statement reads, “While I welcome the suggestion that the refineries be sold, I will be calling on the people of the Niger Delta to resist any attempt to slap both sides of their cheeks, with the satanic suggestion that any cent, accruing from the sale of this cesspit of corruption thereof, be sent to develop any other sector in another region of the country. The Niger Delta people must demand that to the last decimal point, the sale must be used to build the East West road to the standards of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Third Mainland Bridge, the Second Niger Bridge, Umaru Yar’Adua Expressway and other roads in Abuja. The East West road has become the biggest symbol of the oppression and suppression of the Niger Delta peoples. The time to resist this class rape and state sponsored infrastructural violence against the people of the Niger Delta, is today. No more tomorrow.
“I’m therefore calling on the government to sell the refineries, remit every cent to the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, to warehouse and to be dedicated 100 per cent, to the construction of the East West road.
“Ordinarily, the Federal Government of Nigeria should feel a sense of shame by the deaths arising from the state of the Eleme-Onne, Ahoada-Kaiama and Benin-Warri stretches of the East West road, that are incidentally the axis of Nigerian wealth. But this is a state that is deadened by callousness and utter disrespect for the people they exploit their region for the growth of other regions. So, they don’t care, but they must be forced to care this time.
“No more tokenism to infrastructural development of the goose that’s been laying the golden eggs for over a half of a century.
“In summary, sell the refinery, hand the proceeds over to the NDDC and in a tripartite arrangement of the NDDC, Federal Government and three reputable construction companies, fix the East-West road.
Any other arrangement should be resisted and totally rejected by the people of the Niger Delta.
“Truly, enough ought to be enough. And if the government goes ahead to do any other thing, with the proceeds of the sale, then the peoples of the region should en masse occupy the East-West Road. Period!”
