The President of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, Bari-ara Kpalap, and members of his cabinet on Saturday took over the group’s secretariat in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
Kpalap and his executive committee were elected on December 21, 2018 and have since January 1 been working to put the office in a conducive setting for efficiency and optimum productivity, a statement by MOSOP on Saturday said.
Addressing staff, supporters and members of the Movement, Kpalap expressed commitment of his leadership to revitalising the organisation, including its main thematic areas of work to enhance effectiveness and sustained progress in line with the vision and mission of MOSOP.
He added that the reform would affect the areas of Human Rights; Democracy and Good Governance; Environment; Energy and Climate Change; Peace and conflict; and Gender and Health Issues.
He advised the staff to be dedicated to their responsibilities, emphasising that hard work would be rewarded, while indolence, incompetence and dereliction of duty would not be tolerated.
The MOSOP leader, the statement said, reiterated his commitment to running an open and participatory administration that would be owned and easily accessed by the people, adding: “A government that they really can call their own, to which they can make useful contributions that would help to motivate the solution driven agenda of the administration, which is geared towards impacting positively on the mass of Ogoni natives and other minorities in Nigeria and beyond.”
Kpalap added that one of the areas the leadership would touch without delay is reviving its engagement with the local people through regular kingdom and inter-kingdom consultations to enable information on and understanding of developments and as well get their views and challenges and thus recreate a renewed sense of belonging for optimum outcome.
He re-echoed his earlier position that power will be returned to the people as that was the tonic that drove the Ogoni struggle for justice championed by MOSOP to unsurpassed heights, recording universally acknowledged achievements occasioning her earning encomiums and prizes.
The approach, he further said, is envisioned to arouse renewed sense of community to boost efforts at actualising those areas of the Ogoni Bill of Rights that have not been realised.
Kpalap also used the occasion to call on all MOSOP faithful to be calm, law abiding and close ranks as recent happenings in the Movement is a mere phase in the life of the organisation and would soon be over as efforts are in top gear to ensure its resolution.
He stated that the new leadership has been consulting with elders of the Movement and their efforts would soon result into amicable and enduring reconciliation of the aggrieve parties.
He however regretted that while well-meaning Ogoni sons and daughters are genuinely concerned about the MOSOP situation and have been making plausible efforts at ending the imbroglio, some are fueling it for obvious parochial economic interests.
The statement said: “Their encouraging the crisis, we have it on good authority, is informed by the negative reasoning that the scheme would produce an outcome that would put the leadership of MOSOP under their surreptitious control.”
The group believes that controlling the leadership of MOSOP is the standard by which their popularity and influence in Ogoni can be measured, which would enable their grip on the mineral wealth and other related money whirling activities in the area.
The statement by the group’s Publicity Secretary, Fyneface D. Fyneface, added: “We would thus advice a change of heart as the agenda is destabilising. Similar organisations in other climes, we are aware, are supported and protected by their people and not undermined. We would like to sound it loud and clear that while we recognise that MOSOP belongs to us all, the issue of leadership is internal to the organisation and will not be allowed to be dictated by outsiders no matter how powerful who or those involved may be.”