By Emma Arubi / Snr. Correspondent, Warri
The one-week ultimatum handed down to Itsekiri and Ijaw leaders to resolve the issues hampering President Goodluck Jonathan from performing the ground breaking ceremony of the $16 billion Delta Gas City project at Ogidigben in the Warri South-West Local Government area of Delta State has been described as unfair, unjust and oppressive to the Itsekiri people.
President of Ekuomagbe Social Club, Warri, Emoefe Omorhowhovvo, said it was wrong for the Minister of Petroleum Resources to give such ultimatum knowing full well that the government acquired the EPZ land from the Itsekiri people.
According to him, the Ijaws of Gbaramatu should have made all the protest during the land acquisition period as required by government published notices, noting that the whole process was advertised for the public to see and act accordingly.
Omorhowhovvo, who said his son attended Ogididgben Grammar School in the olden days, restated that the town belongs to the Ugborodo Itsekiri people and that was why when the headquarters of the Warri South-West was sited at Ogidigben, the Ijaws protested and even burnt down the community.
They did similar thing to Kantu community and even Kpokpo, which they claimed to belong to them.
He condemned the recent abduction of 14 journalists on legitimate duties and called for a probe of the incident, as some persons of Gbaramatu extraction were said to have spoken with the abducted journalists right inside the community where they were taken to and tortured.
He berated the Ijaw leader, Chief Bare Itolor, for insisting that the Itsekiri should forget court judgment in their favour, saying it is the height irresponsibility to advise people with genuine ownership claim to a property to forfeit same to some other persons because they have chosen the path of violence. “I took my son to Ogidigben to school there. It is an Itsekiri community. How can the Ijaws of Gbaramatu come to lay claim to the land because a project has been sited there. “If they want to be incorporated in the project, it should be by negotiation and not violence. This violence by the Ijaws is taking a new dimension entirely.
“Very soon every tribe would acquire guns to defend themselves. This action by the Federal Government is purely against the Itsekiri interest and it is inhuman and oppressive by all standards,” he maintained.
Itsekiri Leaders of Thought Secretary, Mr. Edward Ekpoko, told Daily Independence in a telephone interview that the ultimatum is blackmail against the Itsekiri and that it was intended to make the Itsekiri succumb to the Ijaw threat to share their land with them, noting that they would not accept it.
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