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B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News |
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Ijaw end London parley, seek global help for resource control campaign
IJAW home and abroad have advocated the externalisation of the struggle for resource control and self-determination as they concluded arrangements to set up an Ijaw Resource Centre in the United Kingdom (UK).
According to the Ijaw leaders, who met recently in London, it has become necessary to involve the international community in the struggle, to enable them appreciate the enormity of the problems and backwardness of the Ijaw and the entire Niger Delta people.
This, they contended, would enable the international community put the required pressure on the powers that prevent the Niger Delta region from controlling their resources.
"You see, if we have a Resource Centre like this, we could galvanise others, the international community may be able to better appreciate our plight because the issues are not known to them," Senator David Brigidi said in an interview in London.
Speaking after the fund raising event to establish an Ijaw People Association (IPA) of Great Britain and Ireland in South-East London, Brigidi said that establishment of the centre was a wonderful move that would enhance the collective struggle of the Niger Delta.
He attributed the violence in the region to the refusal of the authorities to convene a sovereign national conference that will restructure the Nigerian federation in accordance to the wishes of the people.
The representative of Governor James Ibori of Delta State at the event, Wing Commander Peter Biakpara (rtd), told The Guardian that the struggle for equity, fairness and justice in the federation must be carried out along with the indigenes of Niger Delta living abroad.
He said: "The struggle of the Ijaw and the Niger Delta can not be fought from within alone. It is sometimes better to fight from outside".
Similarly, the Secretary to the Delta State Government (SSG), Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, said in an interview that the event was an eye opener, as the Ijaw's have seen the need to involve others in the struggle to emancipate the Niger Delta.
"If other ethnic groups borrow a leaf from the Ijaw's and collaborate, then, the sky is our limit in terms of being united in the Niger Delta and achieving our objectives," he stated.
Uduaghan added: "For us to succeed in this struggle, we have to carry our neighbours along to be able to fight our common enemies".
For the minority leader of the Delta State House of Assembly, Mr. Funkekeme Solomon, the Ijaw Resource Centre initiative was commendable as it would draw attention from the violence going on in the Niger Delta and focus on the need for dialogue and exposing the facts on ground.
Besides the externalisation of the struggle, he stated that the Resource Centre would provide an opportunity for inward looking and soul searching to fish out the perpetrators of violence through criminality.
"The Ijaw nation will have to use this opportunity to fish out miscreants who are fraudsters, who do not mean well, who in the guise of activation are creating problems for the image of the Ijaw people," Solomon stated.
According to him, there are so many persons in Warri who are masquerading as human rights activists, who are only interested in blackmailing people and deceiving people to get money.
He said that with the Resource Centre, there would be co-operation and collaboration, while the potentials of the Ijaw and others in the Niger Delta, which otherwise had been misapplied would be properly harnessed.
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