I am very familiar with the problems of the area. I toured the Niger Delta extensively during my electioneering campaign and gave my word that the area deserves a properly articulated blueprint for its development. It is because of my personal concern about the under-development of the area that I visited the Niger Delta within the first two weeks after my inauguration as President. Soon after that, we presented a bill to the National Assembly on the Niger Delta. According to the President, what could have been a genuine quest for increased governmental attention has snowballed into anarchy and criminality.
People now behead their fellow kinsmen, laying ambush and murdering law enforcement agents.
They resort to piracy, hijacking oil vessels on the high seas, they loot, they steal, they burn down houses and whole communities. This is nothing but sheer criminality. Anybody found to have run foul of the law by committing any of these atrocities will be apprehended and punished, irrespective of his status in the society. Anybody who has contributed in any way to the unrest in the Niger Delta area will not go unpunished. Trouble began in Odi on November 4 when seven policemen were murdered in cold blood by rampaging youths.