Niger Delta
Ijaw to declare showdown with Obaseki over exclusion in appointment of Commissioner
•Says Obaseki should not turn an ingrate
Niger Delta intellectual agitator and president Ijaw People’s Development Initiative, IPDI, has called on governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State to include Ijaw people in the appointment of Commissioners in the state to avoid the wrath of Ijaws in the state.
This was contained in a press statement signed by its National president, Comrade Ozobo Austin on Tuesday.Ozobo asserted that Obaseki has no excuse not to appoint an Ijaw man as Commissioner in the state.
The statement read partly: “Obaseki should not turn an ingrate now. Ijaws have been so supportive to him in all his elections. He won all the Ijaw Communities in his last election, despite the APC’s prominence. What support is greater than that!.
“Oba of Benin who is instructing him not to appoint Ijaw into top political position in the state could not save him till he was pushed out of APC. So how such a man will give you instruction not to appoint Ijaws into top political position and you are listening?
“This is not obtainable. This doesn’t happen even in the animal kingdom. It is an act of ingratitude and stupidity for Obaseki to punish Ijaws for helping him.”It is scriptural that thou shall not bite the finger that feed you. We may declare war against him, except he does the needful.
“I don’t know what the Ijaws in Edo did to Oba of Benin to have said Ijaw should not be appointed into key positions in the state. We didn’t steal his artifacts. There hasn’t any history that said Ijaw took his wife. No history has said Ijaw killed his son! Even the europeans who stole his artifacts and banished his great grand father Oba Overami in 1897 are now Benin best of friends. So what is our sin to be hated this long. Truly, we have been pushed to the wall. May be, we have to go into war to be liberated,” the angry Ijaw leader lamented.
The Ijaw leader, however called on governor Obaseki to speedily consider Ijaws to be appointed as commissioners and other top government positions in the state to avoid the wrath of Ijaw nation.
