The Senator representing Bayelsa West in the National Assembly, Senator Henry Seriake Dickson, has urged the Federal Government to retain the name of foremost Niger Delta activist and leader, late Harold Dappa Biriye in the new permanent head office of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
He said this should be done as a sign of recognition for his role in restoring peace to the region.
Dickson recalled that upon the establishment of NDDC in 2000, the Federal government and the management of the commission decided to name the NDDC temporary headquarters after the activist.
Hw wondered how the name “suddenly disappeared” from the permanent headquarters of the commission.
While presenting the motion on the floor of the Senate, Dickson noted that Dappa Biriye had nothing to his name apart from the NDDC headquarters unlike his contemporaries who fought alongside with him for Nigeria’s independence and whose names and faces are on national currencies and strategic assets.
Senator Dickson, a one-time Secretary to the quintessential Niger Delta Leader and National Legal Adviser to the Ijaw National Congress, told the Senate that while the NDDC has commissioned and moved its personnel and operations to the permanent headquarters, “it has refused, neglected, or failed to transfer the name Harold Dappa Biriye House to it.”
He said that the Senate has already resolved to urge President Muhammadu Buhari to name the new National Headquarters of the NDDC after the late Harold Dappa Biriye.
He recalled that Dappa Biriye among others was the founding Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ijaw National Congress with Pa Edwin Clark as his deputy.
The Senator stressed that the late Dappa Biriye offered crucial advise to the President Obasanjo’s administration on the need to restore peace in the Niger Delta and was one of the leaders who played frontline roles in the establishment of the NDDC.
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