PRESIDENT of the Oodua People's Congress (OPC), Dr. Fredrick Faseun has warned that the Boko Haram insurgency may hamper a successful conduct of the 2015 presidential election and therefore, called for urgent efforts to avert it.
Faseun said his fear was based on the likelihood of the insurgency directly or indirectly preventing southern presidential candidates from going to the North to campaign and canvass for votes.
Urging those at the helm of affairs to take a dispassionate note of what could be a dangerous fallout of this increasingly dangerous security situation, Faseun said the threat to the election could be completed in a likely reprisal move by elements from the south who may want to prevent northern presidential candidates from campaigning in the south or such candidates staying away for fear of reprisal.
His words: "Let us warn that the 2015 polls are fraught with danger because southerners may not be able to travel up North for votes. And in reprisal, the South may create an unhealthy atmosphere for northerners to campaign in this part...Northern politicians must lead the battle for peace in their region and put insurgents on the leash. Otherwise no one can predict the hostile reception awaiting Northern politicians when they attempt to campaign in the South in 2015."
The OPC chief, who spoke at his quarterly interaction with journalist in Lagos Wednesday also called for immediate revocation of licences of all the already allocated oil blocs with a view to allowing equitable re-allocation of same along Federal Character policy.
The Yoruba leader called for "open bidding for all oil blocs and reallocate them on the basis of equity, transparency, due process and Federal Character."
He said the process should include provisions that will enable "local communities a control of a minimum of 25 per cent holding in any oil block."
While urging Nigerians to resist "a bidding process that allocates oil wells in clear violation of transparency, equity, due process and Federal Character," the OPC boss further advised "we need to emulate nations like Libya, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia, which channel massive developmental projects to their oil-producing communities in compensation and appreciation for their contributions to the national wealth."
The elder statesman reminded that "Dubai produces 70,000 barrels per day for the United Arab Emirate (UAE), and a deliberate policy has today turned Dubai into an international commerce and tourism hub," arguing that (the PIB must also promote the development of the Niger Delta into a Dubai and same plan should be made for communities that will, in future, will produce crude oil in Nigeria."
PIB, he reasoned "represents the irreducible minimum for guaranteeing the future of the country's petroleum industry, beginning with socio-economic justice for the long-suffering people of the Niger Delta," asserting that "the PIB is long overdue and so, the legislators must immediately pass it into law."
The Guardian