The Patriotic Ijaw Leaders of Thought, on Sunday, berated former President Olusegun Obasanjo for attacking the National Secretary of the Ijaw National Congress, Ebipamowei Wodu, at a peace and security parley convened to seek solutions to Nigeria’s fragile unity in Abuja.
The forum, jointly organised by the Global Peace Foundation and Vision Africa on December 13, had as its theme, ‘Inclusive security dialogue: Unbundling barriers, a strategic meeting for key influencers’.
However, a viral video showed Obasanjo tackling the INC national scribe for saying that the Ijaw were being treated like second class citizens in Nigeria despite producing the oil and gas resources that had sustained the country.
The PILOT, in a statement on Sunday titled, ‘Obasanjo’s evil diatribe against the Ijaw’, issued by the Coordinator, Ayakeme Whisky, said the former President’s comments were worsening the deteriorating division in the nation.
The group said, “General Obasanjo never shouted down representatives of other ethnic nationalities present, but chose to deride, denigrate and ridicule the national secretary of the INC.
“Rather than develop the virtue of reflective listening to the pains of others as a potent solution strategy to heal the morbid gape characterising our polity, General Obasanjo’s uncouth diatribe against the Ijaw nation has exacerbated the incurable malaise of national division and prepared the platform for possible aftermaths.
“Beyond stating the generally endorsed Ijaw position of self-determination, what was the offence of the INC secretary to earn him this unwarranted attack? Can Obasanjo accommodate a non-Yoruba ridiculing Afenifere secretary in a public parley for merely stating the Yoruba position? This is blind arrogance excessively masqueraded in the toga of a national statesman.”
The PILOT condemned Obasanjo’s outburst and warned him against any attempt to shut Ijaw people from exercising their liberty of expression, adding that all natural resources under Ijaw land belonged to them contrary to his claims.
It added that the INC secretary did not visit Obasanjo’s Ota farm and, therefore, the former President had no right or authority to disruptively interrogate Wodu’s presentation.
The group further stated, “Obasanjo should be clearly told that whereas he may have been favoured by providence to preside over the reins of the Nigerian state twice, no living Nigerian has been part of the greater problems and challenges of Nigeria than him, as he has continued to portray from time to time his resilience in frustrating genuine peace building efforts.
“He should be reminded that the Ijaw nation holds him in loathe over his destructive policies over the years and relentless resolve to deny the minorities their right to ownership of resources tucked away in their blighted land.
“Such tendencies he demonstrated with frenetic verve during his tenure not only as a military Head of State (1976 to 1979) when he presided over the enactment of draconian laws, but also as a civilian president when he wilfully affronted the legitimacy of the authority of the National Assembly to pass the NDDC law.”
The PILOT declared that no amount of threat can deter the Ijaw people from seeking self-determination within legal prescriptions contained in international laws.
Copyright PUNCH.
