By Cross Udo, Abuja
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Ayiri Emami, yesterday told President Bola Tinubu that fighting criminality in the Niger Delta without putting in place infrastructure in the region will not achieve any results.
Ayiri also lamented the poor state of infrastructure in Delta State, especially the road from Warri to Escravos and the need to dredge the Koko and Warri ports.
This came as the Itsekiri chief said oil theft has drastically reduced to about 80 percent as a result of the efforts of the communities in the state.
Fielding questions on why he was at the State House, he said, “Sometime last year if you recall, in September, I was here (State House) to see Mr President, there were some issues I brought before him and those issues were part of his promises during the campaign. So he said when he comes back from America, he will call me to come back here. That’s why I’m here.
“One of those issues has to do with the road from Warri to Escravos, He made promises that once he is elected if we vote for him, he is going to ensure that that road is being constructed, so I came here with the Minister for Niger Delta so that they can put heads together on how that road can be constructed for us in which he gave a nod.
“He asked the Minister to go and put up his memo and come back on how they can go about it. This is one of the issues. The other issues have to do with politics and personal issues, it has to do with the immediate environment in our area.
“You know, the Warri port has been an issue to date. And I made a complaint to him about the pipe that is giving problem at bar mouth. So he said he is going to get across to the GMD (Group Chief Executive Officer) So that they will sit, and look at it on how they can relocate the pipe so that proper dredging can be carried out for the vessel to flow into Warri. So those are the issues why I came to see him.”
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Asked whether he discussed Koko port and other things with him, he said that the issues of Koko and Warri ports were discussed with President Tinubu.
He said, “Definitely once you talk about Warri port, you will talk about Koko port, Sapele port but once that pipe is been sorted out because that’s where the problem is. If you don’t relocate those pipes no matter the amount of dragging the sweeping, you’ll be doing, it will remain the problem and the marketers around that area.
“Those of us that have facilities around the area, we have suffered a lot. So, he needs to see what they can do and he has promised that he is going to call the Minister for petroleum and see what they can do immediately with the GMD.”
Further asked how the oil-producing communities are collaborating with the federal government to nip oil theft in the bud, he said that the efforts of relevant stakeholders in the area have contributed to the drastic reduction of oil theft.
Ayiri said, “Currently I know from Delta I can speak around Delta state that the issue of oil theft is drastically going down, it has reduced to about 80 to 90% because the company handling the job at the moment and some of us are involved and the job is being handled properly.
“To some extent, we’re doing well in Delta and some of these communities, the actors are being carried along. But we still want them to do more. Not just giving contracts these people need good roads, good water, electricity, and good hospitals.
“Once those things are in place in that environment, you won’t believe you go to somewhere like Escravos the shore problem. So, we need to sit down with the PIA, we need to sit down to see what we can do.
“I don’t think fighting all these criminality issues without putting in proper infrastructure, will work, it won’t work. But telling the President you need to do this as given some of us coming out to agitate strongly to tell our brothers that there is no need to go into breaking of pipelines.
“But we just need to do that, we just need to fix the communities because that is the place that lays the golden eggs but if you go to that place it is like hell. I do my things differently, I go with protests. I will not encourage anybody to go and break a Federal Government facility or to go and break the pipe.
“Once you do that the federal government will use that same money that they want to use to develop the place, they will use it to go and fix the pipe first. So Penny wise, Pound f
