Over
1,000 youths on Tuesday took to the streets in Yenagoa, Bayelsa
State capital, to support the recent arrest and prosecution of a former
top official of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), George
Turnah.
The
embattled legal practitioner was accused of fraudulently enriching
himself while he served as Special Adviser to two Managing
Directors/Chief Executive Officers of the NDDC between 2012 and 2015.
The
youths group, who carried placards with various inscriptions, commended
the Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC) for his arrest.
The group said they were shocked to hear the revelation of how he short-changed them during the period.
According
to them, the painful part of Turnah's callousness was the Niger Delta
Volunteer Program, which was designed to empower 2,000 youths of the
region for four years with a monthly stipend of one hundred and fifty
thousand naira but he chose to pay them seventy thousand Naira.
They
accused former President Goodluck Jonathan of giving Turnah the
audacity to operate in an agency as sensitive as the NDDC without being
check mated, leading to his involvement in the monumental fraud.
Their
protest is coming on the heels of a similar accusation leveled against
Jonathan by Chief Perekeme Richard Kpodoh, a chieftain of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) and former security adviser to the Bayelsa
State Government.
Kpodoh
who was also part of the protest had last weekend, lampooned those who
were celebrating what he described as six wasted years of the Jonathan
presidency, saying it is insulting and smacks of ignorance.
The
APC leader had maintained that Jonathan failed to attract meaningful
project to the region but watched with excitement as his aides, mainly
from Bayelsa fretted the nation's commonwealth through dubious and
phantom projects.
One
of the leaders of the protesters, Harold Zoukumor, while addressing the
Bayelsa State Commissioner of Police, Amba Asuqo, said as concern
indigenes of the region, they are completely in solidarity with the EFCC
for justice to prevail in the matter.
He
said: "We have seen and read in the media the recent arrest and
detention of Mr. George Turnah. It is our desire that all said funds
recovered from him be returned to the youths of the region for further
development of their capacity as well as to enhance the living standard
of the people.
"His
action was a clear case of fraud, which has impoverished the ordinary
people, especially the youths, more. So we insist that the loot must be
returned to either the NDDC or any agency to be disbursed to the youths
because it is our money and we appeal to you to use your good office to
work in line with our request."
In
his response, the Bayelsa State Commissioner of Police thanked them
for the peaceful way they conducted themselves and assured them that
their letter will get to the right place.
Turnah
is now standing trial before Justice Ibrahim Watilat of the Federal
High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on a 12-count charge
bordering on obtaining by false pretence, money laundering and abuse of
office.
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