Youths of Ogoniland on Tuesday raised the stakes in their demand before oil exploration activities would resume in the area, 13 years after Shell was forced out.
They say exploration would not be allowed to resume on their land except the Presidency was zoned to the South South geo-political zone in 2007.
President of the Ogoni Youth Council (OYC), Mr Marvin Yobana, gave the condition while addressing youth groups from Gokana, Khana, Tai and Eleme councils that make up the Ogoni area in the state.
In what appeared a U-turn from their favourable disposition to the return of Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Shell, to Ogoni, Yobana told a rally in Port Harcourt that oil from the area would no longer be available for people who do not care about the sufferings of its people.
” We are tired of becoming slaves, producing all the economic wealth people from other zones have used to oppress us, insult us and even betray us,” Yobana said at the Brick House while delivering a letter to Governor Peter Odili to forward the message to President Olusegun Obasanjo.
He said the scars of such deaf rulership, the injuries of their governance and the remains of the insensitivity and wickedness of past governments on Ogoni can only be corrected by the emergence of a President of South South extraction in 2007.
The youth group, which is campaigning for the Rivers governor�s quest for the Presidency in 2007, claimed that Odili must have ruled the state well considering the national and international awards he had received so far.
Yobana also claimed the Ogoni people had felt a sense of belonging since Odili became governor seven years ago, insisting however that the Ogoni would not participate in the elections if the Presidency was not zoned to the South South.
In his remarks, Odili urged the Ogoni to maintain the momentum, sustain the peace in their land by being vanguard of peace in their various communities, adding
” We have lost a lot of time and we must run like a people in a hurry to catch everything that needs achieved,” he said.
The event was the first time the governor would openly receive campaigners for his 2007 presidential ambition.