NNPC Appointments, A Brutal Rape On Our Intelligence – South South Group

A South South group, Isoko National Youth Assembly, INYA, has questioned the “marginalized” appointments of the board of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

Recall that last week, there was a major shake-up in the NNPC. Out of 15 appointments made, 10 were from the North, three from the West, two from the South-South and none from the South East.

The group, in a sharp reaction stated that the appointment was a bastardisation of the country’s federal character principle.

While decrying the lopsided appointments, the group called on President Muhammadu Buhari to “walk the talk of belonging to everybody and belonging to nobody for sustainable peace and progress.”

The statement by its President, Mr. Ovie Umuakpo, in Aradhe, Isoko North Local Government Area of Delta State, read: “The appointments, skewed in favour of some regions, send a dangerous signal to us in the Niger Delta, particularly the Isoko nation, where we had started believing that the Federal Government was moving to restore peace and tranquillity. This is a brutal rape on our intelligence as a people.

“One would have expected the President to match up words with actions when he said the unity of the nation is non-negotiable or is the President fulfilling his campaign promise of giving 99 percent of our collective resources to regions that gave him more votes and one percent shoved down the throat of other components of the nation?

“When 67 percent of available slots goes to a region that contributes nothing in terms of oil output and mere 13 percent comes to us in the South-South, where everything is produced, is a difficult concept to understand.

“How long shall this cow called South-South be continuously milked to feed a particular region fat while we die of marginalization? This models the Emperor Joseph Stalin’s brutal example when he plucked off all the chicken’s feather, wounded and damaged it and watched the poor chicken squawked and screeched in agony and then watched again the wounded chicken creeping back toward the edge of the flock to peck at the bits of grain remaining on the ground which he had dropped, all to perpetually keep the chicken’s head and knees bent in total submission to his superiority.

“This reveals the rascality, treachery and wickedness of the phrase called ‘Federal character ‘when it pertains to recruitment and appointment and it is the mother of all corruption.

“It is the manifestation of the fraud that exists at the point of recruitment into federal parastatals where those from a particular region are seen as special breeds deserving of all fleshy and juicy slots while the patient dog called South-South will get the remnant bones.

“We implore the President to see himself as the father of the nation. He should walk the talk of belonging to everybody and belonging to nobody for sustainable peace and progress. We therefore, urge the government to be sensitive to our diversity and plurality by urgently correcting this anomaly for peace and stability.”