The Vice-President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, will confer with President Umaru Yar�Adua, this week on the way forward for the Niger Delta.
He is expected to brief the President on the position of governors of the Niger Delta states and other leaders on the outcome of the meeting he had with them on July 16 concerning the lingering crisis in the area.
Yar�Adua was out of the country last week when the meeting, convened by Jonathan, formally rejected the summit he proposed to resolve the crisis and find ways to develop the region.
The meeting had opted for �discussions� to synthesise previous reports on the development of the region.
Our correspondents learnt of the planned briefing just as the senators from the Niger Delta states said the offer of military assistance by the United Kingdom to the Federal Government would further aggravate the crisis in the region.
The Minister of Special Duties, Mr. Godsday Orubebe, confirmed to one of our correspondents on Sunday that Jonathan would consult with the President on the outcome of the meetings he had held so far with the governors and elders as well as other stakeholders.
Orubebe said,�There will be consultations at the highest level of government in the next few days. You know that the President was out of the country when we held our last meeting where the stakeholders decided on the issue of summit.
�So the vice-president, who is handling the Niger Delta matters, will brief the President on the outcome and seek his approval to implement the decision taken at the meetings.
�The ultimate decision on the matter can only be taken by the President, who is genuinely committed to the speedy restoration of sanity and put the region on the path of development. The President and the vice-president are going to meet within the week to review the outcome of the meetings.�
He, however, said consultations were still ongoing on the Niger Delta matter since the fate of the region would be decided through consensus by all the stakeholders.
�Whatever decision we are going to take will be a collective one. We are still consulting and working round the clock and we are moving on gradually to reach consensus,� the minister said in a telephone interview.
Orubebe said the committee to be inaugurated to examine all the past initiatives in the region would be made up of representatives of all the states.
Meanwhile, senators from the South-South have said the offer of military assistance from the British government would worsen the already tense situation in the region.
The Chairman of the South-South Caucus in the Senate, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN), told our correspondents on Sunday, that what the region needed was development.
Ndoma-Egba said, �I do not have the details about the agreement with the British government; but I must say that any plan in the region that is not tilted towards a Marshal Plan is sure to further aggravate the crisis in the region. The most urgent thing for the Niger Delta at the moment is development. There should be a marshal plan for the region and not a military pact.�
The Action Congress and the Yoruba socio- poltical organisation, Afenifere, also voiced their opposition to the military assistance from the UK.
The AC, in a statement on Sunday, said Britain was putting the cart before the horse through the �unnecessary and incendiary offer� to Nigeria.
The statement by the party�s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, �The violence in the region is only a symptom of a more deep-rooted problem, caused by years of neglect of the goose that lays the golden egg by successive governments, many of which only paid lip service to efforts to lift the oil-producing communities from poverty and environmental degradation.
�This (military assistance) strategy amounts to curing the symptoms of a disease instead of the disease itself. It cannot work.
�There is no doubt that Britain was not driven by altruism in taking that decision, but by enlightened self interest. Or may be it is pay back time for the Brits, after all Baroness Lynda Chalker backed Yar�Adua�s controversial election at a time local and international observers tagged it the worst in the country�s history.�
Also, Afenifere, through its Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, warned that the problem in the Niger Delta would surely escalate if the Federal Government accepted the British government�s assistance.
It said, �The pact is to protect Britain�s interest in Nigeria, which is the oil. The British government had not taken into account the people in the region. All Britain wants is more money, more oil flow from the Niger Delta and Federal Government�s interest in the region is more revenue as well.
�There is no way the issue of bullets will solve the problem in the region. The only way out is negotiation, but to show that you want to go and bring guns from somewhere to address the problem, you will aggravate the crisis that will go beyond proportion.�
A boardroom technocrat, Mr. Gamaliel Onosode, has, however advised that the programmes envisaged for the resolution of the Niger Delta problems should be insulated from politics.
He told the News Agency of Nigeria in Asaba, Delta State, that what was needed to deal with the challenges in the region was sustained infrastructural development.
Onosode, who is also one of the prominent sons of the Niger Delta, said, �Everybody, all the stakeholders, must work together in order to deal with the challenge, which the environment presents to us in terms of the infrastructure.
�The progammes that should be put in place must be prioritised in ways that will dramatise to the people that there has been a change of attitude. Such programme should be transparent enough to convince the people that we are not just playing politics, that we are really concerned with the challenge.��
He pointed out that the problem in the Niger Delta involved not just the people of the region, but all Nigerians.
�There is no one who can rightly extract himself as not being part of the problem. So by the same token, this is our challenge. The problem in the Niger Delta is our challenge, that is, the people of Nigeria, not just the people of the Niger Delta. It is a national issue,�� he said.