The Nation Newspaper

Tag: ijaw

  • Community protest alleged military harassment

    Leaders of Odimodi Community in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State, have protested against alleged threat to the peace and security of the community and harassment of its 90 year old monarch by the leadership of the Nigeria Navy’s NNS Delta.

    They accused the security agency of partisanship, meddling in the community’s internal affair and threatening the peace and security of the oil-producing Ijaw community.

    The community’s displeasure was contained in a letter to the Commanding Officer, NNS Delta, Warri, Commodore Aliyu Sule, following the CO’s invitation to the nonagenarian clan head, Chief Yangaboy Angalabiri.

    The letter, authored by Larry Ovwromoh & Associate, followed an invitation letter from the CO, threatening to take “action” against the monarch and leadership of the community, unless the monarch makes a long trip from Odimodi to appear before him in Warri and also allow a sacked leadership of the clan to remain in place.

    Attempts to get the Navy’s reaction were abortive as the Base IO, Lt Tope Ogunaike, was unavailable. Commodore Sule was yet to return our reporter’s calls or respond to text message sent to his mobile phone since Friday.

  • Ijaw youths to Obasanjo: Jonathan performed better than you

    Ijaw youths to Obasanjo: Jonathan performed better than you

    Ijaw youths have said their kinsman and former President Goodluck Jonathan’s five-year Presidency recorded more achievements than the eight-year administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

    The Ijaw youths took exception to a comment credited to Obasanjo, that the actions and inactions of Jonathan in office would haunt the people of the Niger Delta for a long time.

    In a statement by spokesman of Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC), Worldwide, Mr. Eric Omare, the youth reminded Obasanjo that one of Jonathan’s greatest achievements was the restoration of Nigeria’s international image through free and fair elections.

    The youth said Obasanjo’s penchant for fraudulent elections made the international community, especially the United States (U.S.), to reject the process that ushered in the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration.

    The statement said: “We make bold to state that former President Jonathan’s five years in office were far better than Obasanjo’s eight years. If Obasanjo has forgotten, we wish to remind him that because of his impunity in rigging elections, President Yar’Adua, on assumption of office, had zero regard in the international community.

    “However, President Jonathan has redeemed this badly battered image by reforming the electoral system; elections in Nigeria today are substantially free, fair and credible with the consequent goodwill they have generated for Nigeria in the international community.

    “President Muhammadu Buhari would not have been receiving the highest respect before U.S President Barack Obama, if not for former President Jonathan’s efforts at reforming the electoral system in Nigeria.”

    IYC noted that if regions were to be haunted by the sins of ex-Presidents, the Southwest would be the first.

    The congress described Obasanjo’s performance as abysmal.

    It noted that the Southwest was exonerated from any blame because it rejected Obasanjo in 1999, having known that “nothing good” could come from him.

    IYC described Obasanjo’s anti-Jonathan’s comments as reckless, baseless and a deliberate effort to dent the former President’s “towering image in the international community”.

    It said: “The Niger Delta region is proud of the achievements of former President Jonathan in office, considering the difficult circumstances he worked. Events in the last few weeks, especially the increased momentum of Boko Haram insurgency in the North, have shown that Jonathan did very well.

    “The IYC advises Chief Obasanjo to conduct himself like an elder statesman and stop his grandstanding all over Nigeria by trying to pull down other leaders. Nigeria needs the wise counsel of elder statesmen to pull the country out from the numerous challenges facing it.

    “The IYC also decries the gradual slide to dictatorship, as exemplified by the reckless arrest and detention of Nigerians, who served under President Jonathan, like Col. Sambo Dasuki and Felix Obuah without due process.

    “It is illegal and unconstitutional for Obuah and (Dasuki), a former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to President Jonathan, to be detained in an underground cell without access to their family members and lawyers.”

  • Oil spill: Ijaw protest court ruling on $1.5b compensation suit

    Ijaw communities in Bayelsa State at the weekend protested the Appeal Court’s ruling on the $1.5 billion compensation suit against Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) of Nigeria over oil spillage in their communities.

    The two chambers of the National Assembly had ordered Shell to pay the $1.5 billion compensation to the 145 Ijaw communities in Bayelsa State for the hazards the company caused them.

    But Shell disagreed with the National Assembly’s order.

    The Ijaw communities filed a suit against the company at a Federal High Court and obtained what they called an unfavorable judgment.

    The court upheld the National Assembly’s proclamation on the matter.

    Not satisfied, Shell approached the Appeal Court, sitting in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital. The court struck out the case on the ground that the National Assembly was not competent to award monetary penalties.

    Spokesman of the affected Ijaw communities, Chief Pere Ajuwa, disagreed with the ruling.

    He said the ruling did not take into cognisance the various evidence the communities’ lawyer presented.

    Ajuwa, a former presidential candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in the 2007 general elections, told reporters in Abuja that the ruling was a miscarriage of justice.

    The spokesman noted that there was overwhelming evidence of deaths, oil spillages and environmental pollution in the communities because of Shell’s exploration activities.

    He said the communities would petition the National Judicial Council (NJC) to investigate the matter.

    Ajuwa said: “We have been in a battle with Shell Development Petroleum Company of Nigeria. When the traditional rulers’ council of Bayelsa State invited me to handle the case, I gave them my conditions, which included non-violence from any Ijaw group.

    “In 2003, a commission of enquiry was called at the National Assembly and there has not been any case of violence against Shell since that period till now.

    “But in this process, we have been undermined, even by certain agents of government and Shell. The commission of enquiry specified that 1,247 indigenes of Bayelsa State died because of Shell’s oil pollution. There was an unmitigated outbreak of cholera and other water-borne diseases. This figure was confirmed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources.

    “I have never seen a place where blood is shed, yet the law enforcement agencies and, even the Judiciary, would shut their eye to the people’s grievances. The Ijaw have kept faith with the non-violence agreement they reached with me.

    “The National Assembly proclaimed that Shell was guilty of environmental degradation, which led to the death of several people. Shell was asked to pay the 145 Ijaw communities in Bayelsa State $1.5 billion. But Shell went through the courts and said the National Assembly could not give a legislative judgment or award such an amount of money to the Ijaw nation.”

  • Orubebe to Ijaw: return to your ‘God-given profession’

    Former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs Minister Elder Godsday Orubebe at the weekend urged his ijaw kinsmen to return to their “God-given profession” of fishing.

    The former minister noted that leaving fishing, following the discovery of oil, had adversely affected the economy of the average Ijaw man.

    Orubebe spoke in Lagos at a seminar organised by Ijaw Professionals Association (IRA) with the theme: Translating the Ijaw Vision Into Reality: Way Forward.

    Orubebe’s paper was titled: The place of Ijaw in Nigeria: A call for strategic action.

    He said: “We have stopped planning and thinking because we believe in the little we can get from the Federal Government. So, we forgot our central goal. The Ijaw people are predominantly fishermen who also engage in maritime activities.

    “But oil changed the nature of our people. This is sad.”

    The former minister described the situation as “our dilemma”.

    Orubebe said the Ijaw, though good in alcoholic drinks production, had also abandoned same.

    The former minister regretted years of neglect of the region by successive governments.

    He said: “Despite being one of the largest sources of oil in this country, Ijaw has suffered marginalisation and infrastructural neglect of our region. More than 90 per cent of the communities are yet to be connected with network of roads. Linkage to the national grid of electricity is still a dream.”

    Orubebe urged Niger Delta residents to create a strategy that would make them become less dependent on oil to enable the region progress.

    The former minister would rather “allow sleeping dog lie” than talk about what happened in the last general elections and the victory of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential election.

    Orubebe said he would tow the footsteps of President Goodluck Jonathan to remain quiet on the matter.

  • Ijaw youths back President to relocate oil project

    Ijaw youths back President to relocate oil project

    Ijaw youths yesterday backed President Goodluck Jonathan’s directive that the fabrication and integration yards for the $500 million Engina Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) in Lagos should be relocated to Bayelsa State.

    In a statement by their spokesperson, Eric Omare, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) said the directive was in line with the local content law.

    Though a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos gave an interim order stopping the relocation, the youths said they also supported the directive that oil and gas cargoes should be moved to the ports in Warri (Delta State), Calabar (Cross River) and Onne (Rivers).

    “We want to make it clear that with a court injunction or without a court injunction, we would not allow materials to be fabricated in Lagos and used to build oil platform in the Niger Delta region.

    “Niger Delta residents have been taken for granted for too long and we would no longer accept it. This is not only in line with the requirement of the local content law but is also makes so much economic sense,” the statement said.

    IYC said Lagos is usually congested, adding that there is need to move some cargoes, especially oil and gas materials, to ports in the Niger Delta where the oil facilities are located.

  • Ijaw in Diaspora warn against pulling down leaders

    The Ijaw Professionals in the Diaspora, a socio-cultural group , has warned against the humiliation of Ijaw leaders.

    The group rose from an extraordinary congress in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States with a resolve to sensitise Ijaw people on the need to ensure its leaders are accorded respect.

    In a statement by its General Secretary, Mr. Akpoebi Okrowanta, the group urged Ijaw leaders to always work together.

    It set up a five-person committee to independently investigate allegations against prominent Ijaw leaders and draw up a code of conduct for all its leaders.

    The group said the legacy of President Goodluck Jonathan must be preserved, adding that leaders, such as Governor Seriake Dickson must be supported “to play a more nationalistic role and to mitigate the collapse of the Ijaw cause”.

    The group said: “Already the group has investigated and found to be untrue, the latest attempts to destroy the unblemished record of performance of the leader of the only purely homogeneous Ijaw State to the mud by linking him to a spuriuos claim of misappropriation of funds with what it claimed as a First Bank Chairman, as being distributed in the social media.

    “We confirmed with the EFCC, that no such complaints have been received contrary to claims that the EFCC was handling the case.

    “With a fake website, the sponsors, who are strangely prominent Ijaw sons did not consider what the big picture of their action would be, but only concentrating on the immediately perceived political advantage.

    “This is just one of the many cases we have investigated and if those concerned does not stop this self destruction, we shall publish their names for the world to see.

    “Once again we appeal to all well meaning Ijaw people to prevail on the larger Ijaw community to work for their collective stability and progress as a way to ending the unfavourable tide that the enemy has woven for our people.”

  • Uneasy calm in Delta after Ijaw/Itsekiri clash

    Uneasy calm in Delta after Ijaw/Itsekiri clash

    Uneasy calm pervaded the Escravos area in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State following midnight reprisal attack by suspected Ijaw militias on Madangho, an Itsekiri community.

    At least two houses were were torched when about 30 heavily armed Ijaw youths stormed the community from Gbaramatu, an Ijaw home clan of former warlord, Chief Government Ekpemupolo (AKA Tompolo). Two suspects were also arrested for the initial attack, which left a 50-year-old security guard in critical condition.

    It was gathered that the attack was a revenge mission by the marauders following an unprovoked machete attack on the Ijaw security guard at Kpokpo, site of the $16bn gas city project by three Itsekiri youths from Madangho.

    An Ugborodo source, who denounced the action of his kinsmen, said, “The old man was guarding tractors and swamp bogey being used to clear the land for the deep sea port when he was attacked by our brothers from Madangho.

    “The Ijaws later came back in anger and started shooting and burning. Two houses were burnt before they left at about midnight.

    “They came back very early in the morning again and I counted over 30 youths armed with sophisticated weapons. They shot for several minutes until some soldiers came and engaged them in a shoutout, which forced them to flee,” a source said.

    The Commanding Officer, 3 Battalion of the Nigerian Army, Lt Col Ekong Bassey, confirmed the report, adding that calm had been restored. He said the matter was being handled by leaders of both communities amicably.

    Nevertheless, it was gathered that the incident heightened tension between the two ethnic groups that have been locked in a cat-and-mouse game over the $16billion Gas City and Deep Sea Port project. Kpokpo, the site of the deep sea port, is a subject of contention between the two sides.

    Various sources told our reporter that the face-off almost degenerated into a full blown war on Tuesday morning following a blockade on the waterways around Gbaramatu kingdom by the Ijaw militias.

    “Boats leaving Ugborodo and other Itsekiri villages for Warri and other upland communities were turned back by the Ijaw youths. They also didn’t allow boats coming into their barricades to Ugborodo.”

    However, it was learnt that calm was gradually returning to the area at the time of this report (3:30pm) on Tuesday following the intervention of Tompolo and Itsekiri leaders who are suing for peace.

    It was gathered that the peace shuttle was helped by the arrest of two of the three recalcitrant Itsekiri youths who carried out the unprovoked attack on the Ijaw night guard.

  • Ijaw youths to North: support Jonathan

    Ijaw youths to North: support Jonathan

    President, Ijaw Youth Council Worldwide (IYCWW), Comrade Udengs Eradiri has urged northern youths to support President Goodluck Jonathan’s bid for a second term.

    Eradiri spoke at the weekend at a one day youth summit organised by the Northern Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), in collaboration with the IYCWW. He reiterated that Ijaw youths did not threaten war, but rather condemned the attacks on President Jonathan.

    He said: “As Niger-Delta people, there was no time we said there would be war if Jonathan loses the election. We only condemned the attacks on his person.

    “We from the Niger-Delta strongly believe in one Nigeria and that is why we want to form alliance with Northern youths, especially in politics.

    “The constitution allows for two terms in office. The Northerners supported Mr. President during the first election and we are seeking their conscience to further support him in order to continue the work he has started.

    “Roads are being constructed, dams are been built, railway is working and agriculture, especially in the North, is improving.

    “We have said it will not be by violence or intimidation. What we are saying is this: Northerners should support us for a second term so that we fully support the North in 2019.”

    President, Northern Youth Council of Nigeria, Comrade Isah Abubakar assured that it would resist any attempt by any politician to involve the youths in electoral violence.

    “Today, we are signing a peace pact. We would resist any attempt by any politician to use us to cause violence during the elections.

    “As you can see, we are releasing these six pigeons, which symbolically mark the essence of our gathering today.”

    Guest speaker, Prof. John La’ah of the Geography department of the Kaduna State University, commended the organisers of the summit. He described it as “a welcome development”.

    La’ah said: “I am very happy to identify with NYCN and IYC. President Goodluck and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have good vision for Nigeria. The President is humble, dynamic, competent and above all, he is healthy and stable.

    “I hope that in 2019, when we are sure the presidency would go to the North, all things being possible, we will be in the South-south for a similar function.

    “It is now time to hold hands and align ourselves with our friends from the Niger-delta, and with our votes, declare our support for President Jonathan so that we can achieve the kind of society our forefathers desired for us.”

  • ‘Ijaw, Isoko, Itsekiri leaders yet to endorse Delta candidates’

    The Ijaw, Isoko and Itsekiri Leaders’ Forum (3Is) has distanced itself from claims of endorsement of candidates of any political party for next month’s general elections.

    In a statement yesterday by its Chairman, Edward Ekpoko, the forum said it had not endorsed or adopted anybody, adding that its position on the governorship and Delta South Senatorial candidates would soon be made known.

    The group said: “It has come to the knowledge of the Ijaw, Isoko  and Itsekiri Leaders Forum in Delta South Senatorial District that some politicians and aspirants are going about claiming to have been endorsed by the body for the forthcoming governorship and senatorial elections.

    “The Ijaw, Isoko and Itsekiri Leaders Forum has not at any time adopted any candidate for either the governorship or Delta South Senatorial seat. Though, we are aware that about three of our sons are contesting as running mate to some gubernatorial aspirants, we are yet to endorse any of them.

    “We shall make our position on the governorship and the Delta South Senatorial seat known to the public shortly. The Ijaw, Isoko and Itsekiri are advised to remain calm and disregard any contrary claim until our position is made known.”

     

  • TMG warns Ijaw leader against overheating polity

    TMG warns Ijaw leader against overheating polity

    The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has cautioned elder statesman Chief Edwin Clark against overheating the polity.

    Its national chairman, Ibrahim Zikirullahi, in a statement in Abuja yesterday, said recent comments credited to Clark were in bad taste and capable of undermining the electoral process.

    The group said the Ijaw leader accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, of being biased against the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), President Goodluck Jonathan. “As Nigeria’s foremost election observation and civic education

    coalition, TMG  feel duty bound to respond to these direct allegations, which in our estimation, seek to put the electoral umpire under undue pressure, while discrediting in advance a process Nigerians and international community have invested so much on and are eagerly looking forward to a fruitful outcome in February 14, 2015.

    “While we are not interested in joining any partisan political fray, it is disturbing to us that an ethnic leader of Chief Edwin Clark standing would make these flippant statements against the electoral umpire, knowing the very serious implication this kind of posturing would have on the political process and indeed the polity itself,” TMG said.

    The group said the same INEC and Prof. Jega, whose integrity Clark was attempting to call to question, supervised the 2011 electoral process, which brought the ruling party and the president to power.

    “At that time, INEC and Prof. Jega were neither biased nor partisan in the estimation of Chief Clark,” the group said.

    The TMG added: “We, therefore, wonder why Chief Clark would at this point decide to launch a campaign of calumny against Jega, whose reputation as an umpire that has refused to pander to any partisan consideration, is well-cemented at home and abroad.

    “ So, what new evidence does Chief Clark have to make these spurious allegations capable of causing problems in the polity?

    “TMG would like to remind Chief Clark that the decision on who emerges as president of Nigeria through the ballot box on February 14, 2015 rests squarely with the Nigerian electorates.

    “The role of INEC is to create the level playing-field, and firm up the logistics for the people to exercise their franchise.

    “We, therefore, advise the chief to be wary of his comments in this delicate national moment.

    “Nigeria is bigger than all partisan and sectional interests put together. The sooner Chief Clark and all those spitting fire and brimstone realise this, the better for the nation.”