…carpet Ondo Senators

…Urge Senate not to surrender to blackmail

By Dapo Akinrefon

A group, the Niger-Delta Development Front, NDDF, on Monday, declared their support for the nomination of Mr Charles Ogunmola from Ondo State as Executive Director, Projects at the Niger-Delta Development Commission, NDDC, by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The former agitators, in a statement by their National Coordinator, National Secretary and National Publicity Secretary, Messrs Ovie Bobarakuie, Kingsley Ebiowou and Solomon Orighomisan respectively, faulted the three Senators from Ondo State, who rejected Ogunmola’s nomination during his screening at the senate last week because there’s no oil in his community.

The former militants said: “These senators are merely seeking cheap popularity after their earlier rejection by their constituents.”

The statement, titled, ‘NDDC: Mr Charles Ogunmola’s ill-advised rejection by Ondo Senators, fake Ex-militants’ threat and Matters Arising”, reads in parts: “We at the Niger-Delta Development Front (NDDF), a group of over 400 former Niger-Delta agitators from Delta, Bayelsa, Ondo, Rivers, Edo, Abia and Imo states respectively, are constrained to react to the ill-advised rejection of Mr Charles Ogunmola, President Muhammadu Buhari’s nominee for the position of Executive Director (Projects) on the board of NDDC by the three senators from Ondo State and leg-less threat by some faceless Politicians masquerading as ex-militants to disrupt the peace in the state should the senate confirm him.

“It’s pertinent to state that while we understand that the two PDP senators from Ondo Central and South merely played destructive oppositional politics by rejecting the nominee, the only APC senator, Ajayi Boroffice, did so out of petty ethnic jealousy.

“While one may sympathise with the senators because their rejection is an exercise in futility as the Senate in its wisdom will neither disgrace the President who legitimately exercised the rights conferred on him by the NDDC Act to nominate Ogunmola nor piss on its own precedent which will be outlined later in the course of this public intervention, the threat to disrupt the relative peace in the region is non-existent as it is the handiwork of some faceless and rapacious politicians hiding under the guise of ex-militants to further their own parasitic agenda which has deprived the region of the needed development and growth over the years.

“We condemn without equivocation the statement credited to Senator Tofowomo that Ilaje and Ese Odo youths will resort to violence and militancy should the Senate confirm the nomination of Mr Ogunmola.

“We, hereby, put all security agencies in the state on alert in case of any eventuality in the aftermath that Ogunmola will be confirmed to please hold Tofowomo responsible for any breakdown of law and order in Ese-Odo and Ilaje LGAs of the state. Tofowomo is from Ile-Oluji, far from Ilaje and Ese-Odo.”

“We at NDDF are only after the development of Ilaje, and not the jaundiced argument of where Ogunmola hails from in Ondo State. Five Ilaje indigenes had represented Ondo State at NDDC as Commissioners without anything tangible to show for their representation.”