Itsekiris Fume Over Confab list, Give FG, Delta, Edo Govts 48hrs Ultimatum *Says Exclusion from list a Monumental Injustice

By Our Correspondent

The Iwere Development Association (IDA) an umbrella body of the Itsekiris has given the federal, Delta and Edo state governments including South-South leaders a 48 hour ultimatum to address what it called a monumental injustice of excluding the Itsekiri nation from the National Conference with a threat to convene its own ethnic conference.

A communiqué released after an emergency meeting of the body and signed by its, Comrades Omolubi Newuwumi and Agbateyiniro Wehinmi, President and Secretary respectively, kicked against the list of delegates released for the proposed conference.

The body posited that the total number of delegates approved for the conference if well appropriated and without greed or deliberate intension of exclusion will be sufficient to accommodate the interest of all ethnic nationalities in Nigeria that the conference was meant for.

The statement read, “That since the conference was meant to discuss the continued oneness and perhaps, the restructuring of the Nigerian nation, all ethnic nationalities in Nigeria are stake holders and so, no one is more superior to discuss the interest of other in her absence.”

“That any list released for the conference that does not prioritize the ethnic nationalities as major stake holders should be immediately withdrawn and reviewed to accommodate such interest”

It also postulated that in a conference that is meant for all stake holders in the country, the major stake holders who are the ethnic nationalities must be well represented.

The communiqué reiterated that economically, the Itsekiri which is the second largest oil producing tribe in the country have produced prominent leaders in the South-South such as, the Publisher of Vanguard newspaper, Sam Amuka, a former Secretary to the Federal Government, Allison Ayete, the present President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor among others.

It added that the Olu of Warri who incidentally is the Chairman of the Delta State Council of Traditional Rulers is among the monarch in Nigeria today that is not gazzeted by law and ranked among renowned  kings which include the revered Oba of Benin, the Obong of Calabar and the Sultan of Sokoto.

It condemned the situation where other ethnic nationalities were qualified to have 20 shots in the said conference but the Itsekiri with its avalanche of natural, human and capital endowments was not qualified to have a single delegate either from the federal government, Delta state or Edo delegates.

The body therefore resolved; “that should the government and political leaders in the south-south geopolitical Zone fail to address these abnormalities within the said period, we shall be constrained to convene our own ethnic national conference where we shall take our own destiny into our hands.

The communiqué then called on all youth, men and women, groups and organizations of Itsekiri extractions and all Itsekiris to converge at Koko where a final decision will be taken if the action is not taken by the government within 28 hours.