PRESIDENT Umaru Yar�Adua is to meet with Niger-Delta militants in Abuja soon over their demand for the creation of two more states – Oil Rivers and Toruebe for the Ijaws and an additional Local Government Area in Bayelsa State, as part of the conditions for peace to reign in the region.
It was learnt with authority yesterday that the demand for the creation of two more Ijaw states and one more Local Government in Bayelsa State to bring the present seven Local Governments to eight were made to the Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan by leaders of the militant groups in the region when he visited them in the creek recently.
Dr. Jonathan reportedly told the militants that he, as Vice President, could not guarantee the creation of two more Ijaw states and a Local Government in Bayelsa, suggesting that it was his boss, President Umaru Yar�Adua that had the power to give a dependable answer.
�It was on this basis�, hinted our source, �that it was agreed that the militants would meet with President Umaru Yar�Adua.�
The date for the meeting could not be confirmed, yesterday, but Dr. Jonathan is facilitating the parley between Yar�Adua and the militants.
Asked if the militant leaders would attend the meeting with Yar�Adua personally, our source said some of them would be there while others would send their representatives.
Besides, Vanguard gathered that the militants agreed to cease hostilities for three months to give the Federal Government opportunity to address their demands, and not the earlier one month, which had already lapsed, that a faction of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) gave the government previously.
To ensure that all the militant groups in the region were carried along in the high-level parley with the government, the leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND), Niger-Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF) boss, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari and others recently convened an enlarged meeting of Ijaw freedom fighters at Oporoza, the administrative headquarters of Gbaramatu kingdom to brief the entire Ijaw youths.
The meeting, held, last Thursday, was attended by Ijaw youth leaders from all over the country but it was not conclusive, as it was shifted to this weekend, to enable other representatives attend the meeting.