Tackle the issues, not the messenger -INYC tells Okowa

Apex Itsekiri  youth body, the Itsekiri National Youth Congress, INYC has enjoined Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa to tackle the issue of underdevelopment of Itsekiri land raised by the Ologbotsere of Warri Kingdom, Chief Ayirimi Emami in the interview he granted Vanguard Newspaper, instead of sponsoring media campaigns that are diversionary and personality centered .

President of Itsekiri National Youth Congress, Comrade Esimaje Awani who made the declaration in an exclusive chat with Fresh Angle International in Warri, expressed surprise that the State government will commit much of the state scarce resources on personality media confrontation with Chief Emami, instead of reassuring Itsekiri people that it was committed to the development of Itsekiri communities and other parts of the State.

According to him, the Okowa administration should as a matter of urgency speed up work at the Ubeji Road expansion project, considering the heavy vehicular and human traffic recorded on that axis daily as well as furnish the multi million naira Erejuwa II Grammar School, Ode- Itsekiri project which has staff quarters, adding that the school project was constructed by DESOPADEC under the previous administration and has been left to rot away.

Awani also tasked Governor Okowa to revisit the DESOPADEC abandoned housing units at Jakpa in Warri North Local Government Area and register the State government presence in Ugborodo as well as other Itsekiri coastal and upland communities in Warri South, Warri North and Warri South- West Local Government Areas, asserting that the Okowa administration should focus on developmental governance.

He admonished Dr. Okowa not to be deceived by the activities of praise singers, but to extend his town hall meetings to the three Warri Local Government Areas, to enable him jaw-jaw with the Itsekiri people and feel ‘‘our neglect”.

 The Itsekiri Youth president bare fang at the Federal Government, saying plans by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources through the NNPC to construct the proposed ‘‘ Ajaokuta- Abuja, Kaduna- Kano”  AKK, Gas pipeline project, could be a ploy to deliberately kill the abandoned Gas Revolution Industrial Park, GRIP project, Ogidigben in Warri South- West Local Government Area.

He posited, ‘‘how else can you explain the plan by the Federal Government as revealed by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu to construct the proposed Ajaokuta- Abuja- Kaduna- Kano AKK Gas Pipeline Project on the pretext that the purpose is to generate 4,600 megawatts of electricity. Not many are aware that the gas to be relied on for this multi-million dollar project are to be produced in Odidi, Escravos in Warri South- West Local Government  Area and other marshlands in the Niger Delta. The question that now agitates my mind is if the Federal Government intends to channel gas from our area for the AKK project, which gas will the abandoned GRIP project rely on? This is why I am afraid that the Federal Government with Delta State born Dr. Ibe Kachikwu as the arrowhead may have abandoned the GRIP project in preference for the AKK project”.

While commending the Buhari administration for improving the security situation in Itsekiri communities, Awani tasked the Federal Government to immediately commence the dredging of Escravos Bar and the entire Warri River if it truly intends to diversify the economy and create more jobs.

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