By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The Ijaw Ethnic nationality has mapped out strategies to protect environment in a summit held in Bayelsa State.
The resolution was made after an All Ijaw Summit with the theme: The Nigerian State and the Ijaw Question, held over the weekend in Yenagoa.
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.
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.”
Source: The Sun
