Following the recommendation by the National Conference for the creation of 18 more states, some Ijaw leaders have threatened to pull out of Nigeria if the federal government refused to create two new states for Ijaws to be known as Toru-Ebe and Farcados states. T
he Niger Delta Ijaw leaders through Chief Saturday Eregbene, a prominent Ijaw leader and president of Niger Delta Oil Producing Community Development Organization (NIDOPCODO), gave the warning yesterday.
He expressed displeasure that the confab failed to address the problems of the Niger Delta, particularly resource control and state creation, adding that at least two states should be created for the Ijaws.
The Ijaw leader recalled that in the 1957/1958 Conference in London, Chief Dappa Biriye who represented the Niger Delta suggested that the Niger Delta people could not be together with the rest of Nigerians as a country therefore requested a separate country but the then Head of the British Government decided to give the Ijaws of the Niger Delta “The Niger Delta Development Board” to pacify them.
“The Confab has forgotten the areas that needed states most such as the Niger Delta Region. Before independence, the Niger Deltans were agitating for Niger Delta Republic but instead they were given NDDB which was later scrapped”, he said. According to him they have arrogantly refused to increase the derivation of resources to 50% as it was done in the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions when the North was a major benefactor of the process through their groundnut pyramids.
Source: New Telegraph
