The National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Bayelsa, on Friday, embarked on a campaign, together with critical stakeholders, against insecurity and other challenges threatening the country’s unity.
The State Director of the agency, Mrs Grace Olobio, made this known during a one-day roundtable conference held at the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Federal Secretariat complex in Yenagoa.
News Men report that the conference had the theme “Pathway to National Cohesion, Development and Unity”.
Olobio, represented by the Deputy Director, Programmes, Mrs Ndidiamaka Mumeya-Francis, said that insurgency, banditry, extremism, youth restiveness, herder-farmer conflicts, militancy, kidnapping, and pipeline vandalism, amongst others as major challenges confronting the country.
She expressed the need for all hands to be on deck to effectively address and tackle the malaise.
She advised residents of the state to be vigilant always and report criminality and infractions of the law to security agencies.
She said that the pathway to national development requires everyone to join the campaign to protect the county’s wealth from criminal syndicates who drain its natural resources and damage the environment.
The Director of a non-governmental organisation, called Peace Building, Conflict Resolution Trainers Network, Dr Dotimi Ogbofa, spoke on the negative impacts of oil production and spillage in the various communities
Ogboga identified greed on the part of some traditional leaders for the unemployment and under development bedeviling most oil-rich communities.
In separate goodwill messages, the State Coordinator, National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, Mr Stalin Nwankwala, the representative of the National Council for Women Society, Mrs Nyanayo Maggi, and that of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, Mr A. Oguntuase, commended NOA for the effort.
They pledged to collaborate with the agency to ensure that the campaign got to people living in the rural communities.
They said that the programme would be replicated in the eight Local Government Areas of the state.
