Ijaw youths in Niger Delta region have threatened to storm the National Assembly to show their displeasure over moves to amend the NDDC Act to include Lagos, Bauchi and Ogun states
The Ijaw youths under the umbrella of the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) worldwide also called out prominent ex-militant leaders, including High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, known as Tompolo, Dr. Ebikabowei Victor Ben, also known as Boyloaf, His Royal Majesty, the Amanyanabo of Okochiri Kingdom, King Ateke Tom and Chief Bibopere Ajube, also known as Shoot-at-sight to lend their voices to the rejection of the amendment bill.
The IYC, in a statement issued in Yenagoa by its national spokesman, Mr Ebilade Ekerefe, while commending the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege (APC, Delta Central) and other members of the National Assembly for their position on the Bill, noted that the youths are in support of the vehement rejection of the bill, which they described as bold and commendable.
IYC called on the ex-agitators from the region to rise up and speak out, insisting that their continued silence is no longer golden on the various issues of neglect, lack of development and other contentious issues including the non-setting up of the NDDC board, the mass purge of Niger Delta indigenes from the NNPC and the exclusion of major roads in the region from the planned NNPC road construction.
The statement read in part: “The total rejection showed by some National Assembly members from the region have further shown that there are still men of honour from the Niger Delta region, unlike others who have continued to treat their region with disdain despite the transient positions they are holding at the moment. Secondly, the proposed Bill for the inclusion of these strange bed fellows to the NDDC goes to confirm our repeated positions that the Niger Delta region has become “a TOY” to be played with by politicians in Abuja and the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari”.
The IYC will be calling on our various structures in northern Nigeria to occupy the National Assembly to resist this obnoxious bill anytime it is brought back to the floor of the senate for further debate by these myopic interlopers from the South-West region.”
.”We want to also put on notice the Nigerian security apparatus and the political leaders that the peace, existing on paper to the present administration, may have become compromised due to the continued insult on the leaders and people from the region. But we must let these politicians, and their anti-Niger Delta elements, know that the “Toy” is a dangerous one that will explode in their hands if they don’t stop the deliberate provocation of its people. The Nigerian nation must remember that Late President Yar ‘Adua and many others pleaded for peace from the people of the region before the wealth they are enjoying became available for them to plunder”.