The umbrella body of Ijaw youths, the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC), said on Wednesday that they are ready to support the anti-corruption and restructuring campaigns embarked upon by the President Muhammad Buhari administration, but also expressed concern that the present campaign is skewed against indigenes of the Niger Delta in the oil industry and targeted specifically against the performance under the Jonathan administration.
The umbrella body of Ijaw youths, the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC), said on Wednesday that they are ready to support the anti-corruption and restructuring campaigns embarked upon by the President Muhammad Buhari administration, but also expressed concern that the present campaign is skewed against indigenes of the Niger Delta in the oil industry and targeted specifically against the performance under the Jonathan administration.
IYC President Udengs Eradiri, while briefing newsmen in Yenagoa, said that formal complaints on the restructuring of the oil and gas sector have been sent to Abuja, but decried “downsizing” that would inhibit development in the Niger Delta, saying that it “basically affected the indigenes of the oil producing states of Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, and Akwa Ibom.” Mr. Eradiri said that many managers from Bayelsa, Rivers, and Awaka Ibom States “who have not been found wanting in any way” have been sacked “without reason,” some of them shortly before retirement.
"We felt we needed to draw the attention of the management to it and say probably it may have been a mistake and oversight. And in [so] much as we believe in the new leadership, we believe they will review the list of those sacked and look at their issues... If they are found wanting, as we are not against anti-corruption crusade, they should be sacked. But if not, they should be recalled,” Mr. Eradiri explicated. He also voiced that there are concerns that managers indigenous to the region had been fired due to a vendetta over the previous election.
Mr. Eradiri reaffirmed the IYC's commitment to fighting corruption but also said that "the issue of Haliburtton scandal must not be swept under the carpet... Obviously, the names associated to the Harlliburton shame are some of the kinsmen of the President and maybe that is why he can not probe it."
On the probe of the past administration of Dr.Goodluck Jonathan, Mr. Eradiri said the Ijaw youths are worried that the anti-corruption drive of the President Mohammad Buhari administration is focused more on the tenure of Jonathan administration than covering conduct and spending by both previous administrations since 1999. “A man is innocent until found guilty by a competent court of law,” the IYC president said. “But the way President Jonathan is being painted, it is just as if he is guilty.”