HEADLINE
Diri to FG: Rename East-West Road
• Says Niger Delta Ministry lacks inclusiveness
Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri, has urged the Federal Government to consider renaming the East-West Road in the South-South region to reflect its real location and status.
Governor Diri also called on the Federal Government to ensure more inclusiveness in the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs in order to give the Niger Delta people a sense of belonging.
Senator Diri stated this on Friday when he received the Minister of Niger Delta, Abubakar Momoh, and his entourage, which included the Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr. Sam Ogbuku, in Government House, Yenagoa.
A statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Daniel Alabrah, quoted the governor as noting that the East-West road had been in a deplorable condition for years.
He contended that the nomenclature of the road, which crisscrosses all the South-South states, was a misnomer.
He said: “I believe that is a wrong nomenclature. That nomenclature should actually be the South-South Road because it links all the six states of the South-South region.
“That nomenclature might have come in those days when Bayelsa was part of Rivers and they were part of the Eastern region. And when Delta and Edo states were part of the Mid-West region. So that nomenclature would have been a historical west to east.
“Today, the story is different and I appeal that the Federal Government should change the nomenclature from East-West to South-South Road. That road is central to all the six states as it traverses all of them.
“Unfortunately, at the moment, the road is nothing to write home about. That is one of the reasons people of this region feel that we are being shortchanged even with all that we produce. With all that we bring to the federal kitty, what actually comes to us is more like peanuts. And often, when the peanuts come, there are some out there opposing it.
“We actually believe that in a federal system of government, regions and states should be allowed to exploit what is in their region and states and pay taxes to the federal government as that is the standard across the world.”
Diri however commended President Bola Tinubu for the appointment of Momoh as well as Ogbuku as the substantive NDDC MD, saying both of them are illustrious sons of the Niger Delta.