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HOW NIGER DELTA CRISIS CAUSED HOT EXCHANGE IN US BETWEEN NWEKE AND OIL FIRM Our Correspondent
From Atlanta to Houston, where the Nigeria rebranding project led by Information and Communications Minister Frank Nweke was articulated to a group of Nigerians and Americans, the Niger Delta crises stuck out prominently at times leading to very emotional exchange between Nweke and some other Nigerians, Empowered Newswire reports from Houston.
For instance while lunch was being served on Tuesday in Houston, a US-based Nigerian who has reportedly invested millions of dollars in the Niger Delta, Mr. Kenneth Yellowe gave a personal account of how his business has been shut down because of the activities of the militant groups in the last one year. He said the business financed from the US has had to be on the receiving end of pressure from financiers herein the US, as the business is not operational and no returns are coming in.
According to Yellowe, the founder of Global Gas Company with business in the Niger Delta area, although the federal government has made some efforts to address the Niger Delta crisis, enough has not been done as yet.
"While I readily acknowledge and appreciate the efforts of my government, as a native son of the Niger Delta, and one of the largest private investors in the region, having invested over 300 million dollars, I must tell you directly, that it is not enough."
Yellowe said the Niger Delta crisis was preceded by "multi-system trauma to the region which started approximately 50 years ago and added that just throwing cash to the Niger Delta by way of the Niger Delta Development Commission and other means will not abate the crises.
He proposed that at a minimum the $400million dollars in the Local Content Initiative proposed by the federal government should be for only companies owned and managed by indigenous people of the Niger Delta alone and not the entire country as presently structured.
Yellowe who intermitted his speech with rhetorical questions which sought to get the audience to confirm his description of the poverty levels in the Niger Delta and the degradation of the environment there added that if the area where one sovereign nation it would have a greater GDP than the United Arab Emirates.
His words: " To put it simply, all indigenous residents of the Niger Delta would be among the wealthiest people on the planet." But he contrasted that by adding that "we can all readily acknowledge that they are among the poorest" right now, describing how pollution and other devastations have left the people the worse for exploration. He said 90% of the Niger Delta people are impoverished and asked the audience to confirm whether that was right or wrong, to which most people responded in the affirmative.
His comments clearly ruffled Information and Communications Minister Frank Nweke Jnr., who then asked for the microphone after Yellowe spoke. Nweke after reintroducing himself as the "Chief Spokesman of the Federal Government of Nigeria" queried Yellowe asking why he did not disclose to the audience how much money his business had made previously in the Niger Delta area before it was shut down.
According to Nweke while some oil companies had been reaping from the pollution in the Niger Delta, there are those who treat the people in the area better and got a better deal from the people.
"I have said my country was perfect, but we bring a message of change, we bring a message of opportunities, of people who have made changing and are making changes," Nweke said adding very spiritedly that the "impression must not be given that my country is the worst in the world, my country is the best in the world."
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