Ekaette Assures on Return of Investors to Niger Delta

Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Chief Ufot Ekaette has  lamented that investors have deserted the Niger Delta region, but assured that he would do everything to bring them back.
Acknowledging that kidnapping, hostage taking and other anti-social vices have badly damaged the economy of the Niger Delta states, the minister expressed the desirability of wining the confidence of investors back to the region.
The minister who spoke last week in Abuja at the opening of the fourth annual West African Investment forum, which was organised by the Commonwealth Business Council (CBC), reassured the international community that government will continue to checkmate the Niger Delta activists.
According to him, the federal government “will not allow the Niger Delta crises to degenerate any further”, and that a “a comprehensive package on youth empowerment, peace and development is being worked out”.
According to the ministry’s deputy director, press, Mr. Fidelis Osammor, the minister a paper titled: “Investment Opportunities in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria”, where he touched on some key factors militating against the region’s development. These, according to him, include: poverty, environmental degradation, weak infrastructural base, and poor telecommunication.
He added that the Niger Delta is also bedeviled by prevalence of HIV/AIDS, absence of electricity, severe coastal and gully erosion, and weak educational system, but gave assurances that the new ministry will develop the infrastructural base; create alternative opportunities for sustainable development in order to engender peace and progress.
According to Ekaette, the new ministry of Niger Delta Affairs is determined to remove all impediments to investment in the region, oversee the implementation of government policies, as well as coordinate other efforts towards the development and security of the region.
“Nigeria is methodological in its approach to the issues of the influx of illegal arms and ammunition as well as oil bunkering”, adding that the report of the Ledum Mitee Committee on Niger Delta regional development had been submitted to a committee mandated to produce a white paper on the report, saying the Ministry would commence its implementation of the accepted recommendations.