The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) has provoked a fresh controversy on the ownership of Warri in Delta State, saying the oil city does not belong to Itsekiri but Ijaw tribe.

The organization also called on the Federal Government not to succumb to the blackmail of President Bola Tinubu by the Itsekiris to revoke the oil pipelines protection contract being handled by Tantita Security Services over alleged fake security report.

The Grand Patron of IYC, Prince Collins Eselemo, at a press briefing in Abuja, called on the Itsekiri ethnic nationality to obey the Supreme Court decision on the delimitation of constituency by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) because it has been settled by the Apex Court.

According to him, while the Itsekiris migrated from Ogun State and Igala in Kogi State, and have no biological and ancestral link with the Olu, the Ijaw have an ancestral link with the throne.

He said, “If the Itsekiris have problem with citizenship, that should be their business. If they don’t know where they come from, it should be their business. Has there been anybody from any part of this country who said that he owned a geographical expression of this country through court judgment over the lordship of the Olu when there is a constitution that gives a provision that all state lands are in the custody of the governor of the state?

“When you have a legal ownership, it must have been with the consent and signature of the Governor of the state via a certificate of occupancy. People are not looking at that. That is what the constitution provides in the Land Use Decree.

“On top of that, people are saying they own a portion of land or a place. It is not only absurd, it’s despotic and excruciating. And this press conference should take cognizance of that, so that any argument they bring forward will be dead on arrival.

“It will be of no moment, considering what the Land Use Decree tells us about ownership of a land. It overrides whatever ownership you own in the 14th Century or in the 16th Century, or even before 1979. So the press should take a very serious constitutional notice of that.

“Then on ownership, if we have to set aside the constitution of this country, like what they have been doing, on ownership of Warri, I dare to challenge any Itsekiri man who will tell me that the Warri cosmopolitan metropolis, whose geographical expression entails Cemetery Road and the Warri urban.

“There is no Itsekiri man whose great-great-grandfather is even buried on this land that I’m talking about. It’s just an octopus nomenclature, for political reasons and administrative convenience, to see it as Warri federal constituency. Koko is not Warri.

Warri is Warri, and Warri is the oldest town, and Warri was there before the birth of Nigeria by our colonial masters. Warri was divided into two segments, the aborigines segment, which is the non-European lease and the European lease. The boundary between this non-European lease and the European lease is Robert Road. In this non-European lease, that is where my father, Pa Agidi.

“All the Ijaw families, own their properties on a virgin land from the non-European lease, our colonial masters. And to crown it all, the first seat of government in Nigeria was domiciled in Focardos by the Royal Navy of Britain.

“They settled in Focardos because they were afraid of the German submarine to attack them in the Lagos Lagoon. So they went to the shallow waters and settled at Forcardos, and they started administering Nigeria from Forcados. From Forcados, it went to Calabar. From Calabar, it went to Lokoja. From Lokoja, Lagos, and now back to Abuja. What are the Itsekiris telling us? You own a place through two intents?

One, you found the place, or you capture the people and you take the place? That is how to own a place. The Itsekiris will say Eselemo is from Bomadi, but they will not tell you where they come from. But I can tell them where they come from. Itsekiris are divided into two.

“They are from the Ogun State, and from Igala, Kogi State. They will not say where they come from, but they will tell the Ijaw man where the Ijaw man comes from. Now, on ownership and royalty.”

IYC Warns Against Revoking Tompolo’s Pipeline Surveillance Contract

Eselemo said, “I want to advise and warn that President Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is a distinguished democrat and he should not cave in to this cheap blackmail as to jettison the good intention of the Federal Government’s appointment to Tompolo to oversee oil facilities.

“I double as an Ijaw man and also as somebody who wants to protect the employment of the Itsekiris that are in Tantita’s employment. That goes to show that there is no monopoly. It is an employment in diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“The Federal Government is leveraging on that to execute projects in this country to better the lives of Nigerians. We all know that oil is the mainstay of Nigerian economy and Tompolo has been in charge in collaboration with members of the security community with the good intention of Asiwaju himself to make sure this happens.

“It has to be so. It has to be sustained because what Tompolo is doing, briefly put, is the calling of the fundamental commitments of his hero’s past.”

Constituency Delineation

Eselemo said, “It has been settled by the Supreme Court and they shouldn’t bring security problems to a judgment that was inclusively delivered by the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

“What did the judgment say? Briefly put, is this. The kernel of that judgment is that INEC should go and right the wrongs. So if the Itsekiri are claiming that with the Supreme Court judgment they act on ownership to determine the war delineation before the Supreme Court judgment, what that means is that whatever intentions, the Supreme Court judgments that gave them right to those lands to determine their political capital has been reversed by the latest Supreme Court judgment, which says whatever that has been done there, whether frivolously or real, is wrong.” (AriseNews TV)

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