Worsening poverty and the failure of the Federal Government to implement agreements reached with militant youths are responsible for the rising wave of unrests and hostage taking in the Niger Delta, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain in Bayelsa State, Mr. Moses Taribi, has said.
The party chieftain who spoke in Lagos on Tuesday night against the backdrop of the pull out of construction giant, Julius Berger, from the state, said unless concrete steps were taken to address the backwardness of the region, youth restlessness would persist.
“The situation in the region today is so bad that poverty walks naked on the streets and the lack of future has forced our youth to resort to unconventional method of seeking redress,” he said. The political adviser to the state governor, Chief Asara A Asara, had last Thursday blamed “desperate politicians” for the crisis in the region, claiming that that they were the ones inciting youths to take up arms and hold oil workers hostage.
But Taribi, who was once the chairman of Ogboiri South/Tarakiri Local Government Area, said this could not be correct, as there was sufficient evidence to show that several years of neglect had led grinding poverty in the area so much so that all the basic things of life were non-existent in the most of the area.
He traced the people’s agitation for development to the colonial times, saying the quest for a better deal led to its being granted a special status. “It was declared a special development area, and based on that, the Niger Delta Development Board was inaugurated in the 60s,” he said, explaining that, “the board was intended to address the developmental problems of that very hostile environment.”
The party chieftain said that despite the board’s efforts nothing substantial was done to reverse the problems, adding that the situation became worse after independence, particularly after oil was found in Oloibiri in 1959.
Taribi traced the history of the people’s violent agitation to the 12-day revolution of Isaac Adaka Boro, in 1966, saying because the problems the Ijaw nationalist fought against persisted, the youth had found it necessary to rise against them.
According to him, as far back as the Second Republic, sufficient warning was given that if the problems of underdevelopment was addressed it would lead to violent crisis.
He said: “In 1982 the Governor of old Rivers State, Senator Melford Okilo, addressed the Senate and mentioned that our generation is a patient generation but that the generation coming after us may not be as patient. And that if the issues of development were not addressed then and they lingered on to the impatient generation, the Niger Delta region might turn out to be an area that the nation might be forced to pay particular attention to.
Taribi said all that had been happening recently were only confirming Okilo’s prediction.
Coming to the present crisis, he said, it was obvious that the failure of the government to respond to the development needs of the people, and agreements reached with militant youths were responsible for the escalation in the hostilities.
Specifically, he identified the arrest and continued detention of a Niger Delta youth leader, Alhaji Asari Dokubo, as one of the reasons for the rising wave of hostage taking, saying the militant youth had warned that unless he was released, they might be forced to go violent.
“These are not facts that were hidden, everybody, including the security agencies is aware of this. And from then on, this new wave of hostage taking has started, he stated, adding, “To solve this problem, the Federal Government should implement the agreements it reached with the youth, because I know that there has been a lot of dialogue with the youth.”
Consequently, Taribi dismissed Jonathan’s political adviser’s claim that politicians were behind the militant’s activities in the state, saying he should apologise to Bayelsans for giving them “misleading information” bothering on the security of the state.
The Eagles digest Magazine crave the indulgence of the leadership of the indulgence of the Niger Delta region to help in fostering peace and security,and contibute to the growth and developement of the Niger Deltas'

After several months of painstaking research by a group of skilled analysts in Phillips Consulting Limited, the company’s Afroscholars initiative is now ready to roll. An aggregation of over 10, 000 scholarships and grants in the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Nigeria for now, www.afroscholars.com is an online resource providing accurate, comprehensive and meaningful information on scholarships for which Africans are eligible. The goal is to contribute to the immense development of human and intellectual capacity of the African continent.
It also provides visa and travel information on destinations of interest, as well as e-learning tools that assist aspiring scholars to prepare for qualifying exams such as GMAT, GRE, SAT and so on. The portal consists of paid and unpaid sections and access to the paid sections is granted via tenured access pins available for as low as N100.
To strengthen the reach and range of the initiative and to ensure its sustainability, Phillips Consulting, last Tuesday, signed an agreement with UBA Group, through the UBA Foundation and MTN Nigeria.
At the formal signing ceremony, the Executive Director of Phillips Consulting, Mrs. Adedoyin Odunfa, said, “The portal is targeted primarily at students of secondary schools and tertiary institutions as well as young persons in the workforce, who still desire to further their education either locally or internationally. The initiative is also endorsed by the UNESCO office in Nigeria.”
Whereas “international scholarships and grants are targeted at the so called developed countries or first world”, Odunfa said, “there are actually lots of scholarships targeted at the developing world, but finding them is time intensive, tedious and for many, simply an exercise in frustration.”
On the partnership between the three companies, the Executive Director, Group Shared Services of the UBA Group, Mr. Phillips Oduoza said “UBA, through its Foundation, will collaborate with its two partners to provide access to over 10,000 scholarships/grants from the foremost educational institutions globally. This will enable Africans benefit from important developments worldwide and be powerful agents of change who will contribute positively to growth in the continent.
“With its pan-African focus, the Afroscholars project closely follows UBA’s aspirations to dominate with strong footprints in the African market. UBA Foundation, through its education programs, has established its own scholarships. This close linkage is one of the reasons why the Afroscholars project was viewed with such excitement when it was first proposed.
Oduoza, who was represented by the General Manager, Electronic and Transaction Banking Suite, Mr. Tunji Adesida said, “MTN and UBA already share a strong partnership through which the dominant GSM operator, with an unprecedented network reach, and the leading Financial Services Group in Nigeria, with over 430 branches nationwide, will provide superior solutions which will benefit all Nigerian consumers. This alliance with Phillips Consulting, the pre-eminent Consulting Firm in Nigeria, to support a noble initiative merely consolidates the existing partnership. We believe with the calibre of the partners collaborating in this venture, education will never be the same again for Africans.”
MTN’s General Manager - Consumer Marketing, Mr. Olu Akanmu described scholarship as a barrier breaker that “provides opportunities for all to get the best of education, as long as they are qualified, irrespective of their social or economic backgrounds. Such democratisation of opportunities and access is what MTN has done with telecommunications in Nigeria.”
He said his company believes that “the project will contribute to building our human resource capacity for long term economic growth. The Afroscholar project by enabling scholarship, education and information for Nigerian youths also connects them to abundant life opportunities. (It) will democratise life opportunities for Nigerian youths by providing them information that moves them ahead in their world, connects them to their dreams and fulfills their long term hopes and aspiration.”
While noting that the three essentials of life, in the past, were food, shelter and clothing; Akanmu said, “today, there are now four basic essentials of life - food, shelter, clothing and information. MTN service, apart from enabling Nigerians to build relationships that matter to them, also provides our people access to essential information to move them ahead in life.
To use the portal, three payment platforms are operational: An MTN short code; the InterSwitch Debit/ATM Card and Pin Mailers which will be available at UBA branches and MTN Friendship Centre Nationwide. To make it affordable, access is tenured and repeat visits are expected. Research is on-going to cover other parts of the world such as Canada, Australia, other parts of Europe and Asia. The initiative which is being rolled out in Nigeria first, is to be rolled out rapidly across the rest of the continent. Dakar, Senegal is the springboard for the roll-out in French-speaking Africa in January next year; to be followed in February, by the roll-out in English-speaking Africa, beginning with Ghana and Kenya.
Other roll-out activities, scheduled to begin early next month, include capacity building forum for the press, corporate launch in secondary and tertiary institutions, unveiling of the site, university roadshows and regional launches in the six geo-political zones, among others.
Akanmu pledged that “MTN will be with the Afroscholar's project team on its road shows, on campuses and every where. We shall also make available our services and technologies to enable hassle- free access to Afroscholar services. Let our youths and indeed our nation fulfil their dreams and "be what they want to be."
Eagles digest Magazine sincerely commends the Phillips consulting group, the UBA, and other groups for this project.

No fewer than 25 million children worldwide may be orphaned by the HIV and AIDS scourge by 2010 as WHO says 13 million orphans already exist.
A medical expert, Dr Austin Omoigberale, released the figures in Yenagoa on Tuesday at a scientific session organised during this year's Nigerian Medical Association's (NMA) annual conference.
Omoigberale, who presented a paper entitled: “HIV and AIDS infection in children”, said HIV and AIDS infection in children rose significantly in the last decade worldwide.
Omoigberale said: “AIDS accounts for 7.7 per cent of mortality worldwide and 19 per cent in infant mortality given a 36 per cent rise in death of children under five years.''
He observed that women and children had been left behind in the campaign against HIV and AIDS, and observed that it was only in 2005 that drugs were made available for children.
“Many children are infected daily with the virus by their mothers in developing countries, through mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) during pregnancy, labour and delivery and breast feeding,'' he said.
He said: “HIV and AIDS in children is preventable even though in children's clinical features, HIV infection overlaps with those of other childhood diseases.''
Eagles digest Magazine would like to crave the indulgence of the young and old, the public and the private sector of the economy,the developed and the developing nations to join hands together to combat these deadly disease!

President Olusegun Obasanjo canvassed the need for regional peace as the country's military held a "peace parade" in Cross River state to mark Nigeria's pull out of the disputed Bakassi Pennisula.
The ceremony was witnessed by Rwandan President,Paul Kagame, Cross river State governor, Mr. Donald Duke, and Nigeria's service chiefs, among others.
Obasanjo said, "History would remeber us for opting for peace rather than war".
He said, "we beseech them not to see our action as a denial of their ancestral and inalienability right,rather as an indication of our civility, respect for international agreement, absolute belief in the rule of law and love for peace."
He continued: "our action in this regard is an inescapable neccesity for peace, security and stability, and there can be no credible and lasting solution in this matter without the collective effort of Nigerians, Cameroon and the international community".
The President said that his administration's agreement with the Cameroon took "due cognizance"of the need to protect the life,welfare,property wellbeing and dignity of our nationals" who chose to remain on the penisulla after the withdrawal ofthe subsequent handover of the entire pennisulain two years time...
The Nigerian leader thanked President Paul Biya of Cameroon on the peaceful resolution of the boundary problem. He said "this understanding will in no doubt further promote our peace and security initiative whose mechanism acknoledge the linkages in this peace, security,stability, democracy of governance and sustainable developement on one hand and the inseperability of our fortunes as Africans on the other hand".
He added, "we have shown that we can resolve boundary issues without wars and unnessary lost of lives and property.

To this end,the eagles digest magazine would like to appreciate and commend the effort of Mr. President on this peaceful resolution!