EPZ: Guide your utterances, Omaghomi tells Itsekiri, Ijaw groups

Principal Consultant to the Environmental Restoration Foundation of Nigeria - ERFON, David Omaghomi has cautioned all Ijaw and Itsekiri groups engaged in media war over ownership of lands accommodating the Expert Procession Zone, EPZ project in Warri South-West local government of Warri in Delta State, to desist forthwith so as to avoid fresh crisis in Warri and its environs.

Omaghomi, a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party stated in Warri that the call has become imperative following the spate of recent media offensive between groups such as the Gbaramatu Council of Chiefs, Warri Ijaw Peace Majority Group, WIPMG, Itsekiri Patriotic Alliance, IPA, Itsekiri Consolidated Movement, ICM and some individuals from both ethnic nationalities.

Speaking through his Media Aide, Ebipade Omatseye in Warri, David Omaghomi averred there is need for all stakeholders across all ethnic divides to be extremely cautious with their conduct and utterances so as not to abort the legacy EPZ project as well as plunge Warri into fresh round of senseless crisis over contentious claims. “It is quite unfortunate that pockets of Ijaw and Itsekiri groups will patronize pages of newspapers to create deliberate disharmony between our ethnic nationalities that all suffer same regrettable environmental and development challenges because of a legacy project that President Goodluck Jonathan has thought wise to bring to Delta State to open up the coastal communities to global standards. Everyone must be very careful, especially against the backdrop of the fact that crisis in the past between the Ijaws, Itsekiri and Urhobos in Warri area have often been triggered by media vituperators”, he noted.

Omaghomi posited that rather than brawl for petty morsels in the EPZ project in the name of community or ethnic beef, all stakeholders should close ranks and work together towards the actualization of the project, “because its benefit in terms of job creation, industrialization and infrastructural development is so monumental”, that every Niger Deltan will be a proud beneficiary.   

×