The Minister for Niger Delta Affairs, Chief Godswill Akpabio on Thursday, paid a surprise visit to the ex-militant leader, High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, popularly known as Tompolo, at his Oporoza, Gbaramatu Kingdom country home in Delta State.
Sources said Akpabio’s mission was to appeal to Tompolo to soft-pedal on his earlier seven-day ultimatum issued to the Federal Government to constitute a substantive board for the NDDC.
Tompolo had in a signed statement on Sunday threatened that failure to inaugurate the board of the NDDC within seven days would lead to total shutdown of oil facilities in the region, which would in turn cripple the economy of the country.
Akpabio was earlier received at the Osubi airstrip in Warri by the Deputy Governor of Delta State, Kingsley Otuaro, and his younger brother, Dennis, as well as some senior military officers.
The minister then moved in a boat to Oporoza, where he had a closed-door meeting with his host, the outcome of which was still being expected by journalists as of the time of filing this report.
On Thursday, scores of Urhobo youths, under the aegis of the Urhobo Progress Union Youth Wing, shut down the Delta State office of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) located in the Warri South Local Government Area of the state.
The shutdown of the NDDC facility is coming barely five days after their Itsekiri counterparts issued a 14-day ultimatum to the Federal Government “to do the needful,” failure of which they threatened to make the Niger Delta region ungovernable. – Punch.
