As part of activities to mark its retreat in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, later this month, the Senate has mapped out modalities to visit the Niger Delta creeks so as to get a first hand knowledge of the suffering of the people. Their findings will be used to finetune intervention strategies during Constitution amendment debates in the Senate.
Disclosing this yesterday at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), headquarters, Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu assured foreign investors that security of lives and properties had returned to the region.
Ekweremadu said oil, which is obtained from the region, was the mainstay of the economy of the country �and everything that concerns the region would be handled with dispatch so that the core of the protests and restiveness would be addressed.�
�The Senate will come to Port Harcourt on October 28 because we want to have a feeling of what the problems are. We want to show the world that we are part and parcel of this place and that life has returned to normal.
�We shall arrive for our programme here on October 28 and we shall go to the creeks to see things for ourselves so that those who draft the laws and pass budgets will have a feel of what the people in this area pass through and what they are agitating for�, he said.
Ekweremadu pledged that the Senate will do everything within its powers to ensure that development of the region was achieved especially as there is a Master plan which every organization and government have approved.
According to him, they will use the opportunity to tour the projects so far executed by NDDC and see the justification in the allocations and if need be, the need to increase based in the enormity of the projects to be executed.
�During the constitution amendment, we hope to touch and deal with the issue of resource control so that whatever percentage we give will flow from reality we have seen�, he stated.
Responding to the promised to go and meet the people who live in the creeks and bear the brunt of oil prospecting and exploitation, Managing Director of NDDC, Mr. Timi Alaibe said the Commission will be grateful to accompany the Senators to the creeks so that they can learn the truth of the people�s complaint to conclude whether they are justified or not.
�NDDC will like to join the tour of the creeks to make you see the places and people who have been neglected as well as their inadequacies.
He asked that the Senate should do everything it can to ensure that it amends the NDDC Act to empower them legislatively to enable them to have the requisite power to work and profit the country.
Oct62007