A former governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in Bayelsa State, Engr. Udengs Eradiri, has told the Bayelsa State governor, Senator Douye Diri, to stop dragging the entire Ijaw nation into his fight for political survival in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Eradiri, a former president, Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) Worldwide, said Diri should go and grind his political axe with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Chief Nyesom Wike, and stop making it look like the Ijaw was at war with Wike.
He said it was unfortunate that the likes of Diri were attempting to drag the entire ethnic group into unnecessary bad blood and the bad book of the federal government with their ethnic posturing in a purely political matter.
Eradiri, a former commissioner for Youths and later Environment in Bayelsa, clarified that he was neither a Wike’s man nor looking for the minister’s endorsement, recalling that he tried to get Wike’s nod as a candidate of the LP during the last governorship election in Bayelsa, but that some persons around the minister blocked him.
He said: “I guess it was the game at the time because a Wike’s endorsement would have perhaps made the outcome of the governorship election different as evident his support led to the victory of Douye Diri because if not for the cancellation of Chief Timipre Sylva’s stronghold made possible by Wike’s support things would have been different.
“This is why I am talking about the hypocrisy in display today. When Douye Diri, ‘Governor-General of the Ijaw Nation’, went down to kneel down for Wike to collect power he used in ijawland to win Sylva and myself, where was the Ijaw pride they so profess today?”
In a statement yesterday, Eradiri queried the whereabouts of today’s so-called Ijaw lovers, when Wike splashed N5bn on the dilapidated Law School in Yenagoa, which was abandoned by those claiming to love Ijaw more than others.
“As usual, our people don’t read or listen. They simply went to the ijaw square to sentence Wike without even knowing what the issues were, they jumped into bandwagon of crucification. Lets even ask ourselves, this our ijawness, why is it not in the development and progress of our nation and people? Why always solidarity at war but not for development?”
He also criticised the way and manner the Ijaw National Congress (INC) handled the Rivers crisis and warned the body against ethnicizing political issues, insisting that the INC brought the Rivers embarrassment on the Ijaw nation.
He said: “The INC failed to realise that those supporting Wike are Ijaws too, Abalama chiefs and youths lined up to welcome Wike, are you saying they are no longer Ijaws? George Kelly and the numerous Ijaw sons empowered by Wike, are they, not Ijaws?
“INC should not be romancing governors egos. The institution is bigger than them and once you belittle the INC before these incompetent governors then the institutions will be ripe for ridicule and insults. Nobody is more Ijaw than any other, so INC should protect all interest and stay away from politics.”
Eradiri said the NDDC Forensic Report revealed that those so-called lovers of Ijaw nation looted the commission and stole moneys meant to develop same Ijawland, adding that they got paid for contracts but refused to execute them.
He said they deliberately underdeveloped the only Ijaw state, noting that they collapsed the educational system and resorted to sending their children abroad.
“Just look at the Atala Marginal Field, the one owned by Ijaw state but taken away from Ijaw youths and sold to outsiders by Ijaw leaders to the detriment of Ijaws. We lost jobs and opportunity for economic growth of the same Ijaw nation.
“See the darkness in Ijaw land no power to drive growth, if not for the NDDC led by Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, who is not in their league but they continue to fight to bring him down, all our communities will have still been in darkness at night.
“Please, let’s stop ethnicising political issues, Diri and Fubara should go fight their political party battles and leave Ijaw nation out of politics. When it favours you you laugh and dance in thanksgiving, when it doesn’t favour you, it becomes Ijaw affair. Wike is not the Ijaw enemy, you people are the real enemies”, Eradiri said.
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