Friday, 29th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search
Breaking News:

Ijaw in Bayelsa celebrate Isaac Boro’s day

By Julius Osahon (Yenagoa)
17 May 2022   |   1:36 am
Business activities in Kaima, headquarters of the Ijaw struggle and Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital, were yesterday shut down in remembrance of the 54th Remembrance Day of their hero, the late Jasper Isaac Adaka Boro.

• Diri: There would have been no Bayelsa, Rivers without Boro
• Ex-militant leader rebuilds Boro’s family house

Business activities in Kaima, headquarters of the Ijaw struggle and Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital, were yesterday shut down in remembrance of the 54th Remembrance Day of their hero, the late Jasper Isaac Adaka Boro.

Hundreds of Ijaw youths, under the aegis of Ijaw Youths Council and Movement for the Survival of Izon Ethnic Nationality in the Niger Delta (MOSIEND), in the early hours of yesterday ensured the closure of businesses in honour of the Ijaw hero.

Ijaw leaders, including the Bayelsa State governor, Douye Diri and President of the Ijaw National Congress (INC), Prof. Benjamin Okaba, described the creation of Rivers and Bayelsa states as a direct product of the martyrdom of the late Isaac Boro.

Speaking at separate wreath-laying ceremonies in Kaiama and Yenagoa as part of activities to commemorate this year’s Boro Day celebrations, Diri paid tributes to the departed freedom fighter for laying his life down for the good of the Niger Delta region.

Represented by his deputy, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, at both events, the governor insisted that the Ijaw nation and the region would have been far more backward than it is today without the heroic struggles of Boro.

He used the opportunity to commend his predecessor, Senator Seriake Dickson, for bringing the remains of late Boro from Lagos to his native Bayelsa for proper interment in line with the traditional beliefs of the Ijaw people.

While thanking the youths for always coming out en masse to venerate the Ijaw freedom fighter, Diri, however, warned them not to criminalise the Boro Day celebrations and Ijaw struggle.

The governor said: “While there are a lot of people who aspire and assume the sentiments of Boro, a lot of people do not reflect the characteristics of Boro in their aspirations and determinations and the things they do.

“As a youth, who is Boro to you? Was Boro involved in oil bunkering, cultism, kidnapping, or involved in disrespecting elders? The answer is no. Was Boro involved in vandalising federal government and state government infrastructure in his community? The answer is no.”

MOST significant aspect of yesterday’s yearly event was the formal handing over of a palatial building to the Boro family, rebuilt by an ex-militant leader, General Endurance Amagbein, at the Boro family compound in Kaima.

An excited David Jasper Boro, younger brother of Isaac, and oldest member of the Boro’s family, said Amagbein came last year’s Boro Day and the family showed him the old house.

He wondered why Ijaw leaders did not do anything about the house all these years they have been celebrating Isaac Boro. “Amagbein took it upon himself and spent over N13 million to rebuild the house and save the family from shame.”

The first daughter of Isaac Boro, Esther, said the significance of the celebration was knowing where the Ijaws were coming from and where they had gotten to today and the changes they had to make within themselves.

National spokesman for IYC, Comrade Ebilade Ekerefe, noted that the remembrance celebration of the Ijaw hero had impressed on the minds of youths from the Niger Delta region that he was not just another folk hero, but a university student’s leader, teacher, policeman and Nigerian army officer.

In this article

0 Comments