THE GUARDIAN

Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) Worldwide has lauded the reappointment of Amina Mohammed as the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, tasking her on the conservation of the Niger Delta wetland, rated as the third-largest in the world.

The council, in a statement signed by its President, Peter Timothy Igbifa, described her reappointment as an acknowledgement of Nigeria’s contributions to the global economy.

He said with the neglect of the Paris Agreement on the preservation of wetland by the Federal Government, the natural endowment located in Niger Delta had been abandoned.

He said such a sad development had worsened the impact of climate change, leading to avoidable natural disasters like flooding.

Igbifa said with Mohammed’s reappointment, the country occupied a vantage position globally to address her environmental and other challenges and called on her to visit Niger Delta to assess the damage done to the country’s wetland and use her vantage position to actualise the Paris Agreement.

Such a visit, he said, would help her to gather facts on the devastation in the region towards making a case for the Niger Delta in the next UN General Assembly.

Igbifa said: “As a Council, we congratulate Amina Mohammed on her reappointment as the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations.

“Her reappointment is an eloquent testimony of global acknowledgement of Nigeria’s contributions to the global economy. We call on Amina to use her office to address the abandonment of the Niger Delta wetland conservation.

“We call on Amina to pay a visit to the Niger Delta region to assess the damage being done to the wetland and give national support as the IYC makes case for the people of the region in the next UN General Assembly.”