Academics from the Niger Delta on Wednesday challenged leaders from the oil-rich region to look inwards in tackling the developmental challenges facing the area.

The dons spoke as discussants at a colloquium to kick-off the burial rites for the former Managing Director of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Pastor Power Ziakede Adinighan.

The colloquium coincided with the 60th posthumous birthday of Pastor Aginighan, fondly called P.Z. Aginighan, who died at 59 in an auto crash at the Mbiama section of East-West road on September 1, 2018.

The former NDDC boss had lost his life along with his son and police orderly.

The lead presenter at the colloquium titled “The Niger Delta Development Challenges and Institutional Responsibilities: The Way Forward”, Prof Samuel Ibaba, noted that the region had suffered enough neglect for which it has also complained enough.

Ibaba, Dean Faculty of Social Sciences, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Amasoma Bayelsa, called on the people to shift their attention from external forces working against the region and look inwards to find solutions.

He said that the narrative of deprivation has been over emphasised, with the intervention agencies performing below expectations urging the people to work to enhance the competitiveness of the region.

“The old narrative of unfairness by the Nigerian government that exonerates us and shifting blames to other quarters than us has to be reviewed; in all honesty the old narrative has been over emphasised.

“Since the Willings Commission recommended the establishment of a Development Commission to focus on Niger Delta, a lot of things have happened. We need to review how we have performed and ask questions.

“There is empirical evidence that we are ethic in our approach, whenever the Managing Director of NDDC shifts to a particular state in the region, the states gets the lion share of the projects.

“It is also clear that the oil bearing communities for who the derivation revenue accrues are often neglected. We should give ourselves the fairness we demand from the Nigerian federation,” Ibaba said.

In his discussion, Prof Godwin Darah, of the Faculty of Arts, University of Africa, Toru Orua, Bayelsa, urged other Niger Delta governors to join Governor Seriake Dickson in the advocacy for restructuring.

He said that the region should intensify efforts on the struggle for resource control for greater share of the oil resource for the development of the region.

“If we have fared this far with 13 percent derivation, imagine what full resource control of 100 per cent can do, 13 per cent derivation is 87 percent deprivation,” Darah said.

In his on contribution, a former employee at NDDC, Mr Atei Beredugo, regretted that despite incremental increase in funds accruing to the NDDC, development in the region was not commensurate with the inflow of funds.

“In year 2000, total fund to the Niger Delta region stood at about N200 million, but as at 2013 it is about N1.8trn but despite the increased income, can we say that development is commensurate with what came in?

“The NDDC annual budget is in excess of N300bn and the Commission has been there for 18 years and if you compare Delta and Anambra states, will there be any difference between an oil derivation state and that without?” Beredugo said.

He traced the problem of the region to public servants who owe allegiance to no one, adding that if the electoral process was reformed, it would return power to the people.

Earlier, Chairman of P.Z. Aginighan’s Burial Committee, Chief Ayakeme Whiskey, said that the colloquium would be held annually to immortalise the late Ijaw leader.

Also speaking, Ambassador Godknows Igali who extolled Adinighan, said that late leader epitomised the Niger Delta struggle and rose from an employee in the NDDC to become an Executive Director and later Acting Managing Director.

“P.Z. Aginighan was brilliant and with a deep spirituality and was gifted with leadership from the early stages of his leadership,” Igali said.