A group, Urhobo Youth Worldwide has condemned the renaming of Osubi International Airport as Alfred Diete Spiff International Airport by the immediate past President Muhammad Buhari in the twilight of his administration.
The youths said it was a deliberate act to cause crisis in Delta State in particular, and Niger Delta region in general.
The president of the group, Duru Nixon Ufuoma, said it would be better to rename the airport after David Ejoor International Airport who is a Deltan and rename the Bayelsa International Airport after Diete Spiff International Airport who is a from Bayelsa State.
He said Alfred Papapreye Diete-Spiff is from Bayelsa State, not Delta State and he is the Amayanabo (King) of Twon-Brass in Bayelsa State.
“He was the first Military Governor of Rivers State after it was created from part of the old Eastern Region which Delta state is never part of. late Major-general David Ejoor was the first military governor of the Midwestern Region, made up of the present Edo and Delta States.
“If not neglect, I see no reasons why the immediate past president of Nigeria should deliberately rename Osubi International Airport in Delta State after a man from Bayelsa state, while somebody like late Major General David Ejoor who made history as one of the first Nigerian officer cadets to get regular commission into the Nigerian Army in the process of indigenizing the officer corps in the early 1950s was deliberately ignored.
“Therefore, we all have a collective duty to keep alive his patriotic duty for a peaceful and secured country. For the sake of peace and unity, we, on behalf of Urhobo people, condemned and completely reject the renaming of Osubi International Airport as Alfred Diete Spiff International Airport,” the group said.
