The immediate past governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan on Wednesday averred that the Joint Task Force, JTF, as well as other security agencies cannot continue to keep the peace in the Niger Delta region.
Uduaghan, a Delta South senatorial hopeful, insisted that only people in the various communities can keep the peace.
He stated this when the President of Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities, FNDIC, Chief Ogboko Bello, in company of a Delta State House of Assembly aspirant, Comrade Sheriff Mulade, paid him a courtesy visit at his Warri residence.
The former governor said, “there has to be a law that gives a security architecture that ensures that security is community-based.
“From my experience, JTF cannot continue to keep the peace in the Niger Delta. The Army cannot. The Navy cannot. The Police cannot. The only people that can keep peace in the Niger Delta is the community themselves.
“But to be able to do that, there has to be a law ensuring that architecture is community-based.”
While noting that so many laws needed to be formulated, Uduaghan observed that majority of the contracts within the region were awarded to people who are not from the Niger Delta.
He said, “A lot of security contracts today, you see pipeline surveillance is the one reigning now. Who are those getting the pipeline contracts? They’re from outside the Niger Delta and when they get it, there are some of these our middle-men, just give them something and these middle-men who get the something, they give small, small peanuts to the boys who are on ground. That should not happen.
“We must have an architecture that ensures that even those our small, small boys are legally employed. It is not at the whims of anybody. There should be a structure that ensures that people are legally and permanently employed and can rise in that security architecture.”
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