MOSIEND wants NDDC to develop oil producing communities

Port Harcourt -- The Movement for the Survival of Izon Ethnic Nationality in the Niger Delta, MOSIEND, has charged the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, to ensure full development of the oil producing communities, following the the inauguration of its new board.

The National Chairman, Elders Council of MOSIEND, Chief Timi Ogoriba, while reacting to the inauguration of the NDDC new board, lamented that most oil producing communities are left underdeveloped despite their contributions to the national economy.

Ogoriba tasked the members of the NDDC new board, headed by a former presidential aide, Mrs Lauretta Onochie, to use their tenure to develop oil bearing communities in the region.

He maintained that MOSIEND will only support presidential and governorship candidates who have a blueprint to develop Izon people in the forthcoming elections.

He said: "Oil should be owned by the community that produces the oil and we pay royalties to the centre. All of these things are not right, so the next person that is coming should be able to correct these ills.

"Right now, no person that is from the area that produces oil has oil block, and the oil blocks are manned by the people that are from the outside.

"These things are not supposed to be so. So in the next dispensation we want to make sure that all of these must be put together.

"The man will oversee Bayelsa and Rivers State must be a true Izon son. Anybody that is coming we want to sit down and look at the Izon interest. We will make that person to sign an MoU with us. Politics is ubiquitous, whoever that is coming as Mr

Chief Timi Ogoriba

President we have to play a role to ensure his success so we can have a stake there.”