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isoko address nigeria j18

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j18discussion@gn.apc.org

AN ADDRESS PRESENTED BY ANTHONY UNUKOWOR OF THE ISOKO NATIONAL YOUTHS MOVEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE ISOKO PEOPLE IN WELCOMING DR OWENS WIWA, THE YOUNGER BROTHER OF KEN SARO WIWA AND ALSO ON THE OCCASION OF THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST IMPERIALISM AND CORPORATE RULE.

Fellow comrades, in whom trust, courage and confidence forbear
the
struggle of emancipation.The invincible Ogonis,the courageous
Ijaws and
the tireless fighters of the Urhobo National congress, the
Itsekiri
Youth Vanguard, Egi, Peoples forum, Egi Women Movement, Niger
Delta
Women for Justice etc.I salute you all.
We are gathered here today in welcoming Dr Owens Wiwa back home.
His
welcome back home is not that of a Head of State or Governor
coming
back from a tour, only to be received by waiting Ministers and
commissioners but as a mark of consoling and identifying with the
family of Ken Saro Wiwa and the Ogoni People.
Four years ago when Ken was killed by the orders of General Sani
Abacha, the irony of it was that of Caesar's murder of Brutus.
Today
the ideals and legacy of Ken Saro Wiwa as enshrined in his death
has
raised the consciousness and unification of the ethnic
nationalities of
the Niger Delta people.
The richly Niger province, as cornucopia of Nigeria's wealth has
been
subjected to penury and traumatization for nearly four decades.
Successive governments have persistently denied this rich bloc of
any
hope to economic, social, cultural and political growth and
survival.
Concerning the crude oil exploitation, the multinational and her
cohorts have devised crude and devilish tactics of divide and
rule
syndrome. This practice has left the Isoko and the Niger Delta
undeveloped since the discovery of this Black Gold. The Shell
Petroleum
Company have find it very convenient in so doing only to ferret
inter
communal wars, while looting our treasuries. Our waters have been
poisoned, .deforestation of our environment, the ecosystem have
destroyed without due compensation.
The Nigerian syndrome of "show body" which show cases the nations
wealth home and abroad, could not be good enough to alleviate the
lingering suffering of the Niger Delta people? For instance, a
Nigerian
man with the loot from sales of crude oil, will buy a whole
street in
London. The cost of buying a street in London, would it not be
good
enough to transform a town like Bori? The waste of $40million
dollars
which accrue to the state account during the Gulf War in 1990 not
good
enough to provide good roads and bridges in Ijaw towns and
villages?
What about Abacha and his family loot, would it not be enough to
develop Isoko land and Nkwane? While we appreciate the hosting of
the
world youth

World youth championships, tagged Nigeria 99, the country spent
110
billion dollars in up grading the eight stadia in a span of few
months,
which is capable of solving most of the problems in the Niger
Delta
all over these years. In the same vain, a travel to Abuja will
remind
you of a total neglect of the land where the money used in
transforming
Abuja to a world class city is gotten from, of recent the Federal
Government, has erected a new building for the national assembly
costing N5.4 billion, while the Niger Delta is ebbing out social
cultural economically and infrasturcturally day after day without
any
mention or attention by the government

For 40 years of oil exploration and exploitation, for good 40
years of
subjugation, repression, torture, degradion and psychological
deprivation of the Niger? Delta peoples. For 40 years, the
Nigerian
state has been marred with insensitive waste and squandermania of
the
country resource gotten from the sales of crude oil, mined in the
Niger
Delta. It is evident to note with the popular phrase that a fool
at
forty is a fool for ever. We the Niger Delta people does not want
to
see Nigeria our country a fool for ever. In the same vain, we as
a
people of the Niger Delta, we not want to see as fools, whom only
could
be mollified with big promises when angered.

AS we are marching into the next millenium, "the year 2000" we
are
marching into the new century with courage and hope and our
destiny in
our hands with the watch word "self determination and control of
resource" with respect to our corporation existence as a people
of one
Nigeria.

Once more we salute the heroes and matryrs of the struggle. We
wish to
note that the spirit and faces of comrade Adakla Boro, Kenule
Besame
Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni who were judicially murdered by
the
late Nigerian maximum dictator, General Sani Abacha are smilling
with a
sign of relief that their death was not in vain as their legacy
left
behind has been a guiding torch and their ideals a framework upon
which
the struggle for the survival of the Niger Delta people is built
upon.

We also seize this opportunity to appeal to the Federal
Government to
release the body of Ken Saro-Wiwa for a betting burial in his
home town.

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