Niger Delta elders under the Chief Edwin Clark-led Pan Niger Delta Coastal States Stakeholders Consultative Forum on Saturday rejected calls by the Federal Government for a two-day summit in the region.
Former Police Affairs Minister, Alaowei Bozimo, who represented Edwin Clark said this during a visit by a three-man delegation from the US in Effurun, Delta State.
The group vowed not to attend, stating that the Federal Government must ensure its promised dialogue with militants in the region.
“It is timely that the US has come again on a fact-finding mission. We just told them that we want a dialogue and not the summit that Federal Government intended to convene.
“It is equally a wise decision of the government to have suspended that inappropriate summit going by the reports we have received. We believe that the answer is not a summit. The answer is dialogue. The way forward is not the jamborees or endless summits.
“A very incongruous gathering of nearly 500 persons with government officials talking to themselves at Abuja, which would have been the experience with the summit, could not have addressed the key issues. That is why we are objected to the summit. Dialogue and not the monologue they were trying to put up can resolve the crises in the region.’’, Bozimo told journalists after the meeting.
