An Ijaw socio-cultural organisation in Delta State, the Egbema Youths Leaders of Thought (EYLT) has accused the state’s new helmsman, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of injustice for ceding the two commissioners slot allocated to Warri North to nominees of Itsekiri extraction, adding “it’s a further affirmation of their erroneous belief that the council belongs to only Itsekiris”.
In a statement, the EYLT president, John Elekun Amabolou said the Delta governor’s action contravenes the Federal Character Principle in Chapter 2, Section 13 of the 1999 Constitution and “is capable of promoting the dominance of one ethnic group against others at the government level”.
Amabolou said the EYLT also wishes to express its dissatisfaction over the threat by the Itsekiri Consultative Congress to resist the planned protest of Egbema youths against Governor Oborevwori’s exclusion of the Ijaws of Warri North in his cabinet. He said this might lead to another crisis in Warri North if the Itsekiri Consultative Congress is not called to order by the authorities.
The statement reads: “We want to put on record that history does not repeat itself but people do repeat history. We want the unguided Itsekiri group to read the history of the Warri crisis. What caused the Warri crisis? It was the unjust location of a local government created for the Ijaws of Warri and the burning down of Chief E. K. Clark’s building by a group of Itsekiris mercenaries at his Warri GRA home when the Ijaws protested against the unjust location.
“We want to put it on record that we are not protesting against the Itsekiris of Warri North but against the government of Sheriff Oborevwori. So, there’s no need for any group to threaten to attack us during the exercise. We want to make it clear that we have four wards in Warri North as against six for the Itsekiri and, as such, they cannot take the two commissioners slot in Warri North. That it’s against the Federal Character principle as provided in Chapter 2, Section 13, Subsection 4 of the 1999 Constitution.”
There was a protracted crisis in Warri from 1997 and 2003 among the Itsekiri, the Ijaw and the Urhobo ethnic groups. The conflict broke out following a government decision that relocated the Warri South Local Government Area headquarters from the Ijaw community of Ogbe-Ijoh to Ogidigben, an Itsekiri community. The council headquarters was eventually returned to Ogbe-Ijoh, which restored a fragile peace in 2005.
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