We have suspended talks with FG on 16-point agenda – PANDEF

TRACKING >THE Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, said on Monday it has suspended talks with the Federal Government on the 16-point agenda presented to the presidency in 2016.

PANDEF said the talks with the presidency has gone from “monologue to no logue” and cited lack of political will as the reason for the non-implementation of the agenda.

The National Chairman of PANDEF, AVM Idongesit Nkanga (retd), who spoke with Vanguard, said despite promises by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo during the series of dialogue with Niger Delta stakeholders as advised by PANDEF, “only a few out of the 16 points have been achieved by the federal government.”

Nkanga said: “It wasn’t something that was supposed to have been abandoned because when we submitted it then, the President said he would use it as a working paper and the Vice President even toured the South-South at that time and made pronouncement bothering on those issues in many places.

“Later the government said they are setting up strategy work implementation plan and immediately that went into the ministry. PANDEF was not consulted and that was the end. So, we do not know what has happened, because we told them very clearly that the first thing is to have a dialogue which we started only for it to become a monologue and today it is no logue at all.

“So, nobody is talking to nobody and that is the situation on the ground today. But some of the issues are issues that we cannot just sleepover. So we will continue to talk and am sure future generations will continue to talk because it is for the good of the nation and not just the Niger Delta region and some of these issues do not cost us anything. It’s just political goodwill, stating that if you do this, you will ensure peace in the Niger Delta but they seem not to see it that way.”