The Ijaw Ethnic nationality has again shown its preference for self-determination vowing to stop at nothing until it achieves self- determination for its people.Breaking News, Nigerians can now work in Nigeria and get paid in US Dollars
The summit organised by the Ijaw National Congress (INC), was attended by Ijaws across the country and it had in attendance traditional rulers and political officer holders.
According to them the only visible reward the Ijaw nation had received from Nigeria for feeding and sustaining the country have been “consistent degradation, despoliation and destruction of our environment, fauna and flora with no remediation strategy”
The President of the INC, Prof Benjamin Okaba who read the communiqué stated that the Ijaws are dismayed by the refusal of the Federal Government to accede to the Ijaw ethnic nationality’s request for a paltry 10% of profit of the oil and gas proceeds thus prompting the Ijaws to rethink its relevance to the Nigerian state as a people.
Okaba stated that the Ijaws would continue to engage the Federal Government on its critical challenge as well as the enthronement of a new federal constitution that is without prejudice to their resolve to seek self-determination.
According to him the Ijaws would employ all peaceful, diplomatic, non-violent and other tools of civil disobedience to pursue and actualise their right to self-determination as a distinct people of common historical and cultural affinity and geographical contiguity.
They said they can no longer depend on Nigeria for the protection of its environment and therefore decided to have an autochthonous Ijaw environmental protection strategy to leave sustainable land for future generations.
The communiqué reads in part “That the Ijaws occupy the most difficult coastal areas of the country that is blessed with resources to feed the Nigerian nation but remains ‘backward and poor’ 62 years after the Henry Wilkins report so describe it. We are not only poorer but better off than what rightly and naturally belongs to us.
“That the government of the federation has poorly and unsatisfactorily managed the inherent ethnic diversities resulting in neither hues and cries over marginalisation but ignited several separatists tendencies among some major ethnic nationalities.
“That the Nigerian federation has been an aberration as it does not conform to all known precepts of federalism which emphasizes division of powers between the central government and the constituent units on a coordinated and independent basis.
“We live with the hazardous effects of gas flaring and the now pervasive challenge of soot, suffering unmitigated health hazards which have continued to send our people to early death.
“That the Ijaw ethnic nationality can no longer bear the grave injustices, impunity, fragrant nepotism, marginalisation, neglect, oppression and enslavement by the Nigerian state.
“That the right to self-determination, access and control of our resources is not only inalienable but backed by several international laws.”
Credit: Daily Sun