US $580-million investment for Niger Delta

After years of neglect, Niger’s troubled Delta area could have a brighter future with the announcement of plans yesterday for a multi-million-dollar programme to develop the region, news reports said. The presidential Committee on Development Options for the Niger Delta submitted its recommendation yesterday for the immediate launch of the 20-year regional master plan, ‘The Post Express’ newspaper of Lagos said today. The 22-member committee, chaired by Major General Oladayo Popoola, recommended the earmarking of 15.3 billion naira (US $175 million) for infrastructural development this year, in addition to other spending plans. According to AFP, the Federal Ministry of Transport has agreed to invest 30.4 billion naira (US $350 million) in infrastructure this year and the Communications Ministry, 19.7 billion naira (US $230 million). Among many other recommendations, the committee called for the establishment of a Niger Delta Consultative Council, chaired by the chief of general staff or vice president, with representatives of stakeholders as members. Popoola said that the Delta had the highest concentration of commercial investment financed with public funds. He called on citizens of the area to refrain from violence and use appropriate channels to seek redress for their grievances. That sentiment was echoed yesterday by the secretary-general of the Ijaw Youths Solidarity Movement, Stephen Youyah, who said: “Youths are opting for peace.” There have been many kidnappings and seizures of oil flow stations in the Niger Delta area. Youyah said youths had taken to violence because of neglect and the resulting poverty. Most young people, he said, had ways to make a living but needed tools and material to “enable them activate their profession”, The Guardian reported him as saying. “There needs to be money going to small business projects, micro-credit, rather that big government projects,” Pat Utomi, a leading Nigerian economist told AFP today. Utomi, who heads the political department at the Lagos Business School, said the massive investment announced by government was unlikely to raise living standards in the Delta. “What is needed is the creation of an enabling business environment for the region, tax breaks and so on, that will encourage people at the low level to get into non-oil businesses, setting up motorbike repair ships, small manufacturing, agriculture,” he added.