To avoid a crisis, the Niger Delta Congress has urged the people of the region to ignore MASSOB leader Asari Dokubo’s claim of forming the Biafra Customary Government.
In a statement shared on Thursday, 18th March 2021, the acting spokesperson of NDC, Oyagiri Adokiye said that the declaration does not have the support of the ethnic nationalities of the region.
Asari Dokubo, on Sunday, declared a Biafran government stating that it was time the people of the region take their destiny into their hand.
Dokubo also named those who would serve as leaders in the government adding that they would proceed to set up provincial structures for the new government.
“We as people have resolved that as Biafra, it’s time for us to take our destiny in our hands and bring freedom to ourselves and our children and the generation of Biafrans yet unborn,” he said.
NDC disclosed that the ‘Niger Delta people have suffered tremendously within the Nigerian contraption, and is aware of the urgency required to address this and other issues and was conversing with the ‘different ethnic nationalities in anticipation of its planned Sovereign Regional Conference where the peoples of the region will decide on the future of the region within or without the Nigerian federation.’
The full statement reads below;
The Niger Delta Congress is informed of the recent declaration of a Biafran Customary Government by Asari Dokubo, the former leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF).
The declaration, which coopted the different ethnic nationalities of the Niger Delta region without their assent in the formation of a government, comes not just as a surprise to the NDC and the Niger Delta people, but also as an affront to the freedom and rights of the people of the region to pick and choose for themselves the future that they want and deserve.
The Niger Delta Congress calls on the Niger Delta people at home and in the diaspora, and the international community, to disregard this declaration as it cannot be said to have the support of the ethnic nationalities of the region.
The NDC believes that the Niger Delta people have suffered tremendously within the Nigerian contraption, and is aware of the urgency required to address this and other issues.
The Niger Delta Congress has consequently been consulting with the different ethnic nationalities in anticipation of its planned Sovereign Regional Conference where the peoples of the region will decide on the future of the region within or without the Nigerian federation.
The NDC urges the peoples of the region to resist this attempt to be annexed into the Biafran contraption, which is capable of dividing the region and being an obstacle in the actualization of our collective struggle for economic and political autonomy.
History will this time be favourable to the people of the Niger Delta as we have taken our fate into our own hands.
Long live the Niger Delta!!
STATEMENT ISSUED BY THE NDC:
Adokiye Oyagiri (Acting Spokesperson)
