The Board of Trustees of the Ijaw National Congress (INC) says election into the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the INC scheduled for today, Monday, April 13, 2026, will go ahead as earlier scheduled.

Chairman of the BOT, Alabo Dumo Lulu-Briggs, stated this while briefing newsmen after over four hours of the inaugural meeting of the body held on Sunday in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital.

Lulu-Briggs, who is the head of Oruwari Briggs War Canoe House in Abonnema in Rivers State, said after a meeting with the National Electoral Committee, voting might be done either physically or electronically as there is no going back on the polls.

The INC Board of Trustees has Chief Fidelis Agbiki as Secretary.

Other members include eminent personalities in the Niger Delta including first class traditional rulers, academics, high ranking retired generals and former leaders of the apex Ijaw socio-cultural group.

The election into the INC NEC earlier scheduled for March 7 was suspended following legal disputes and an interim injunction granted by a Rivers State High Court granted on March 6 over the alleged disqualification of some candidates as a result of a suit filed by one of the contenders, Macdonald Igbadiwei.

President of the INC, Prof Benjamin Okaba, had in a reaction to a purported suspension of the April 13 poll by the Council of Ijaw Traditional Rulers and Elders (CITRE), an organ of the INC, said that the CITRE was under his leadership.

Chairman of CITRE, HRM, King Bubaraye Dakolo Agada IV, Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama Kingdom, Chairman of Bayelsa Traditional Rulers Council, had on Sunday said that any INC elections in Bayelsa would only amount to an exercise in futility, insisting on the guiding principles of the INC Constitution.

But Okaba dismissed Dakolo’s assertion, saying: “I am the president and leader of Ijaw nation the national convention is the highest body and in that body we also have CITRE as a subset, zonal chairmen and all that, and when the convention holds I preside over the CITRE chairman, that is true, in fact meetings of CITRE are authorized by me, it is constitutional.

"You can see that what he is doing is ill intended and it is for the advancement of personal interest and it is being for both selfish and destructive purposes that is just the truth."