By Emma Arubi (Warri) and John Dugbe (Ughelli)
THE Ugborodo Community Graduate Association (UGA) has condemned the action of President Goodluck Jonathan for failing to perform the ground breaking ceremony of the $16 billion dollar Delta Gas City project at Ogidigben on November 14 again after several postponements because of a threat by his Ijaw kinsmen of Gbaramatu kingdom.
In a statement in Warri, Secretary General of the association, Esiategiwa Mino, said the action amounted to a break of promise and unnecessarily pandering to the whims and caprices of his Ijaw kinsmen.
But then, a prominent Gbaramatu chief, Captain Beck Hitler, berated the Itsekiri Leaders of Thought for allegedly insulting the President over the aborted groundbreaking ceremony of the controversial Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in Warri South West Local Government area of Delta State.
Hitler, at a briefing in Warri, said “The President’s decision to abort the ceremony was for the interest of peace and safety of lives”, adding that “Nigerians have commended President Jonathan for averting bloodshed in Delta State”.
Nonetheless, The group of graduates argued that the claim of the Gbaramatu Ijaw to Ogidigben land was unfounded, baseless and without facts and urged Jonathan to stand by his promise and raise above tribal sentiment the governance of the country that is his constituency.
Citing the inaction of the President on the petition by a Lagos lawyer, Festus Keyamo, as regards the threat to his life by Tompolo, the Ugborodo graduate association said it speaks volume as to who governs the country legally, noting that Ogidigben land belongs wholly to the Ugborodo people with the Gbaramatu Ijaws as tenants.
They expressed regrets that while the President performed the ground breaking ceremony for the Maritime University, Ship/Dockyard at Okerenkoko and Oporoza respectively with ease even when the land belongs to the Itsekirs, it beats their imagination that he failed to perform same ceremony to the Itsekiri nation because of threat from a segment of the Ijaw nation.
The group further condemned the kidnap of 14 journalists on their legitimate duties with the sole aim of stifling the truth about who owns Ogidigben EPZ site by destroying their cameras and memory cards of the tape recorders and even seizing some of them out right, noting that when the journalists covered the Ijaw protest and warning to Jonathan on Wednesday last Week, nobody harassed them.
While calling on the President to stop the marginalisation and oppression of Itsekiri people on their land by the Ijaws through sheer force of arms, they called on him to reschedule another date for the event urgently to prove that he is President of the country and not Ijaw president.
In his own remarks, Hitler, a marine expert, warned that Itsekiri Leaders of Thought cannot blackmail or force Jonathan to do what was wrong for any reason whatsoever, but that instead they should blame their son, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, for not settling the crisis before inviting the President for the ceremony.
According to him, “Itsekiri leaders have been claiming that the EPZ is completely cited in Ogidigben, an Itsekiri town; unfortunately, this has further exposed the falsehood, tricks and manipulating tendency of the Itsekiris which they have failed on the EPZ project”.
He said, the Ijaws of Gbaramatu and Ogulagha will never accept any form of injustice and oppression from the Itsekiris, until critical issues relating to the location of the EPZ project were settled amicably to accommodate the interests of all stakeholders.
Hitler noted that the Ijaws and Nigerians are not scared of Itsekiri Leaders of Thought threats to seek secession from United Nations, adding that even the United Nations will fall to the trick of Itsekiri.
He advised Uduaghan and Itsekiri leaders to be honest and genuinely proffer lasting solutions to the lingering crisis over the location of EPZ project to pave way for the groundbreaking of the $6 billion mega-project in Delta State.
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