President of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), Prof. Anda Wai-Ogosu has urged Ogoni people to build strong synergy in the ongoing dialogue for the resumption of oil exploration in Ogoniland.
“Dialogue, discussion, conversation is the in- thing today in the world. Once you miss thatz what do you have? It is crisis, conflict and every other thing which will not be good for us. It has not paid us well,” he said
The environmental expert who spoke in an interview, stressed that Ogoni is lucky to be host to a lot of natural resources that the country has depended on to develop, but the area remains backwrd and underdeveloped.
“Ogoni people should ask them the question, and ask ourselves the question, when did Abuja come up and how did Abuja come up?
“Abuja was built in 10 years with the resources coming from the Niger Delta, but in particular at that time from Ogoni axis. But where are we and what do you see?
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“What you see is abject poverty, penury, deficit in infrastructure and the little education that we have, the structures are all gone
“So this dialogue session is another opportunity for us to listen to ourselves, make concrete suggestions that we can take as Ogoni position to the president because if we start talking in one voice, there is a lot we can benefit,” he maintained.
Prof. Wai-Ogosu pointed out that while Ogonis pioneered agitatoon for environmental justice and equity which ought to have kept them ahead of others, other ethnic groups have overtaken them because they formed a common front and spoke in one voice.
“You.see the Ijaw National Congress (IYC), Arewa, Onanaeze Ndigbo and all that. They are making it because you see collaboration, you see talking in one voice, you see people sit down and resolve their issues. What we are good at here, is destroying ourselves,” he lamented.
