National
UPU Sets Urhobo Agenda, Demands N1 Trillion Reparation From FG
The Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), the apex leadership organ of Urhobo people of Delta State, has set agenda for the Urhobo nation, tagged the Urhobo Agenda.
It is also demanding for reparation of N1 trillion from the Federal Government for the many years of resource plunder and environmental degradation through crude oil exploitation and exploration.
President General of UPU, Olorogun Moses Oghenerume Taiga, made the disclosure on Wednesday during a pre-event press conference to officially announce preparations for the 90th anniversary of UPU scheduled for November 29 to December 5, 2021 at Uvwiamuge-Agbarho with notable Urhobo personalities in attendance.
Olorogun Taiga explained that the UPU as the “rallying point that succeeded in uniting the Urhobo people, giving them a sense of identity, pride, direction, and more over the years” was nurturing the Urhobo Agenda to galvanise Urhobo into taking her place in an anticipated new dawn in Nigeria so as not to be caught napping when events begin to unfold at unimaginable speed to the discomfiture of the unprepared.
“In crafting an Urhobo Agenda we took a hard and dispassionate look at the Nigeria of yesterday, today, and what it would be like tomorrow. What we offer as the Urhobo Agenda will begin by evaluating our present predicament in Nigeria and then come up with a blueprint of a new deal with Nigeria.
“An Urhobo Agenda must of necessity focus on our endangered environment which has been laid waste by years of crude oil exploitation and exploration. To begin with, the Urhobo people will be demanding reparation of N1 trillion from the Federal Government of Nigeria and the oil multinationals for the many years of resource plunder and environmental degradation.
“In line with this, we demand an environmental remediation programme for communities that were negatively impacted by oil exploration such as Erhoike, Erhobaro-Orogun, Imodje-Orogun, Afiesere, Evwreni, Erhuemukohwarien, and many others,” Taiga said.
In a veiled reference to the novel Wado City Movement which strived to redefine the identity of Urhobo in Warri, Olorogun Taiga disclosed that the Warri factor was an integral issue in the Urhobo Agenda.
“The Warri factor is also an item on the Urhobo Agenda. The Urhobo presence and identity in Warri can never be undermined. While we will continue to live peacefully with our neighbours in Warri, we will not allow the erasure of what Warri is to the Urhobo and what the Urhobo are to Warri,” he said.
The UPU president-general emphasised that the Urhobo Agenda was going to address issues of Urhobo unity, language, history, and culture, “redirect our interest to agriculture and the attendant empowerment and wealth creation advantages tied to it. This will culminate in the industrialisation of Urhoboland.
“Urhoboland can be an investors’ destination and production hub. The Okugbe Micro-Finance Bank will drive a revolution in Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in Urhoboland. The Sapele Port has to be revived, the moribund Delta Steel Company must come alive, and the African Timber and Plywood in Sapele must be made to work. An Urhobo Agenda will encourage Nigerian and foreign investors to revive the many other moribund industries across the length and breadth of Urhoboland”, he added.
Olorogun Taiga also addressed the question of insecurity in the land and the menace of Fulani herdsmen, while seeking to build alliances with our neighbors and other ethnic nationalities in the South- South and beyond to work out a new destiny for Nigeria as she totters towards a new beginning.
“To this end, while the Urhobo Agenda does not support secessionist agitation, it aligns with the call for the restructuring of Nigeria, in line with the tenets of federalism. We support the call for the relocation of the headquarters of all oil companies to the Niger Delta. We align with the position that election results should be electronically transmitted. We support the state’s collection of the Value Added Tax (VAT), the enactment of anti-open grazing laws, the establishment of state police, and other such progressive factors that will make Nigeria great,” Olorogun Taiga added.
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