There are strong indications that President Muhammadu Buhari has commenced consultations with some of his predecessors and key stakeholders on how to tackle the activities of the Niger Delta Avengers.
The President on Thursday night met secretly with the immediate past President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan in the State House, hours after cancelling a trip to Rivers state for the flag-off of the clean-up of Ogoniland.
The President also met for about one hour with former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his office on Friday.
Though, there has been no official statement after the two meetings, State House sources say the discussions were centred around the activities of the Avengers, who have vowed to achieve zero oil production.
According to the sources, President Buhari had since last week initiated talks with Jonathan on how to get the Avengers to embrace peace.
While Jonathan hails from the Niger Delta region, the President’s advisers, according to our sources, also believe that former President Obasanjo, could use his influence which cuts across the length and breadth of the country to rally support for Buhari’s administration in the Niger Delta.
The President also met with a delegation of Bishops of Anglican Communion of Nigeria on Friday.
During the meeting, the President discussed the general security situation in the country especially attacks by herdsmen and vandalism in the Niger Delta.
Arch-bishop Nicholas Okoh, who led the delegation told State House Correspondents that “We told him many things but part of it we are all looking for solution to issues of the herdsmen,issue of vandalism .. in one way or the other because the people are asking us and we want to have explanation for the people who we lead.”
On what the President response was, Okoh said it was “very favourable. He gave us detailed explanations of what he is doing to ensure that these things are solved. So, we have hope; we have message for our people.”
Asked to comment on Buhari’s first year in office, the clergyman said “We believe that so far its been okay because of the difficulties of the time and between now and the next one year we are looking forward to something more direct now.
“Something that will get to the people easily,so far for the first year it is trying to clear the stable; prepare the place; make the work move forward. We look forward to a better 2016-2017 budget year that you can see that with the long delay in budget,the issue of padding, we were not able to begin easily.
So, the next one we know will be better that is why we are talking in that way,its okay for now but it could be better.”
