As the people of Ogoni ethnic nationality in Rivers State, the governorship candidate of Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) in the state, Rt. Hon. Leyii Kwanee, has advocated for peace and unity amongst the people of the ethnic nationality.
Kwanee made the call yesterday in a solidarity message to the people of Ogoni on the 30th Ogoni Day celebration, which was held simultaneously in Bori and Port Harcourt.
The ZLP governorship candidate said: “Ogoni people must make this moment count for us and our unborn generations. We must forgive one another of past mistakes and forget past errors. We should be telling the Ogoni story from fresh pages of hope and only the old pages where our triumphs against all odds are chronicled.
“Thirty-one years after the Ogoni Bill of Rights was launched, what we must do next to protecting our oil; our environment; our rights; our people; our heritage; and our future is to consciously and deliberately work on developing an easily enforceable Ogoni Charter of Equity.
“We must work to unite our people against all forms of external negative political and socio-economic influences by emphasizing our common homogeneity. We must emphasize our being Ogoni instead of loyalty to partisan interests.”
While calling on Ogoni people to take the moment and the tide of the 2023 general elections at its fullest, Kwanee said the people must retool their engagements with other ethnic groups in Rivers State to further their mutual political interests before launching back on the national stage.
He said: “Gbene Ogoni, we must retool our engagements with other ethnic groups in Rivers State to further our mutual political interests before we launch back on the national stage.
“In proceeding further with our constructive engagements and strategic partnerships with other ethnicities in our dear State over the years, we must be deliberate in assuming our long overdue political leadership of the State. In approaching the race to the Brick House, we should emphasize “the principles of mutuality, of fairness, of equity and justice” that the Ogoni Bill of Rights fittingly captures.
“Gbene Ogoni must take the moment and the tide of the 2023 general elections at its fullest. Let no Ogoni man or woman fall for that trap of building our political interests around party affiliations. We must avoid treachery and whatever has been used by external forces to undermine us through the years.”
