PRESIDENT Umaru Yar�Adua, yesterday, explained that the delay in convening the Niger Delta summit was to ensure it (summit) would produce concrete results.
The Special Adviser to the President on Communications, Mr Segun Adeniyi, told State House correspondents at an interactive session in Abuja that similarly, the president had not declared a state of emergency in the power sector because he was still awaiting the report of the National Energy Council on the sector.
The president, according to him, does not want the Niger Delta Summit to be a kind of talk shop where people would only come and present papers, but one that would involve all stakeholders especially militants in the area to come and proffer solutions to the problems of the region.
�The kind of Niger Delta Summit that the President is planning is not the kind that we had in the past where people would come and present papers.
The Niger Delta Summit the President intends to host is a summit where concrete agreement will be reached. So many meetings and consultations are going on.
The Summit is expected to be the conclusion of all those meetings.
The President, while discussing this morning (yesterday) said he never envisaged these negotiations will take this long but I can assure you that so many things are going on, so that once the summit holds there will be a firm agreement among all the stakeholders and when I mean stakeholders, I am talking essentially about the militants,� he said.
On the power sector, the presidential spokesman said though a state of emergency had not been declared, a lot was being achieved as the president has been in consultation with investors from Germany, Russia and China.
�The report will be ready within the next few weeks for him to declare a state of emergency.
Meanwhile, a lot of things are going on. Series of meetings have been held. He has met with Russian businessmen.
The President will soon be going to Russia to meet with President Putin and he will be meeting with the Chinese over the use of coal for electricity. A lot of achievements have been made but the power sector emergency will be declared when the report is ready because it is going to be all encompassing.
That is what the President is waiting for. Once it is ready, the emergency will be declared,� he said.
Speaking on the president�s recent advice to judges to avoid delivering judgements that would please the public, Mr Adeniyi said the president�s speech was being deliberately distorted, but had no regret over his advice because �in a situation like that, it is better to state what you consider the home truth.
�It was a general advice that they should realise that whatever judgement comes out of the court, this government will abide by it. I mean taking into account such position they should temper their powers with responsibility. It was just an innocent advice.
I read all kinds of things: that he is not happy with Andy Uba�s ruling, he is not happy with Rivers ruling. The President knows what he said and he is also happy with it because the people to which he addressed applauded what he said.
What he said was in line with what the Chief Justice said.�
Mr Adeniyi said the president was not in any way jittery that his victory could be upturned by the Election Tribunal.