The Governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa says that the Zamfara State Government’s decision to assume control of gold mining in the state is an “illegality” that cannot be allowed to stand.
He warned that the Federal Government must immediately intervene to stop the illegality, which he said no law in the control backed, or South-South Governors would be forced to assume control of oil and gas deposits in their states.
Okowa spoke Wednesday at an interactive session with journalists in Asaba, the Delta State capital.
The Delta Governor, who doubles as the Chairman of the South-South Governors Forum, said governors, ministers, lawmakers and other stakeholders from the region would on Friday hold a meeting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State to deliberate and come up with a position on the matter.
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“South-South governors before now have been talking about the need for restructuring and need for resource control, obviously we are on that because we feel there is the need to restructure not only the country, but the management of resources.
“But as at today, there are acts in the National Assembly that guide the issue of oil production and with the solid minerals, those are not covered in these acts and obviously, this is already a sore point in our nation’s governance system and we hope to express this very strongly during the meeting taking place in Portharcourt on Friday.
“We cannot apply laws in our nation to the point that it becomes discriminatory because if people are allowed to process for their solid minerals, they should also be allowed to do same for their oil. So we are going to be very hard and try to make our voice as strong as possible during the meeting.
“I believe that at some point in time, these discriminatory tendencies will have to be revisited in our nation at some point in time,” Okowa said.
He said that while there were rooms for improvement, South-South Governors were performing creditably in spite of the challenges confronting the region.
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