United Kingdom (UK) has warned that the restive nature of the Niger Delta region remained a major threat Nigeria�s bid to conduct free, fair and credible elections in April next year.
Speaking yesterday in Abuja at a press conference, members of the United Kingdom Parliament (MPs) under the aegis of All Party Parliamentary Group, said UK was worried that threats to peaceful transition may have lined Nigeria�s path to a peaceful transition next May.
Chairman of the group, John Robertson (MP) who was flanked by the country�s High Commissioner to Nigeria, Sir Richard Gozney, John Mann (MP), among others, said it was �no secret that there are concerns, both in Nigeria and beyond, regarding the period between now and the elections to take place in April 2007.�
Robertson, who was the chairman of the conference on Niger Delta, said living conditions in the Niger Delta have largely remained unchanged since his group turned in its last report on the region.
He listed poverty, corruption and the failure of the elected representatives to be accountable to the electorate.
Submitted the MP from Glasgow: �One thing that was raised in our last report, and I have no doubt that we would be raising it in our next, is the accountability of the elected people of this country. If I can come all the way from the United Kingdom to talk to these people, so can they. We visited villages and we talked to people and where wells have been sunk with pumps has broken pipes, and the pumps work for only two hours.