Ika Igbo-speaking communities in Edo State have raised concerns over what they described as decades of political marginalisation and suppression of their identity, accusing successive administrations of excluding them from meaningful participation in governance and development.

Speaking with journalists in Asaba yesterday, a prominent community figure, Apostle Azuka Okah, alleged that the communities have endured “systemic neglect and structural exclusion” within Edo’s political framework.

“Our people are politically stranded and administratively abandoned,” Okah said, accusing state authorities of ignoring repeated appeals for equitable representation and infrastructure development.

The communities also pointed to what they described as chronic underdevelopment in their areas, citing dilapidated road networks, poorly equipped healthcare centres, underfunded schools, lack of potable water and limited government-backed projects.

They argued that the disparity between the resources generated from their territories and the level of development visible in their communities has heightened suspicions of deliberate political exclusion.

“We are treated as outsiders in our ancestral homeland,” one community leader told reporters, adding that their linguistic and cultural identity has been downplayed in state affairs.

The affected communities — Iru, Igbanke, Ogbagie, Igbo-Giri, Owa Ri Uzo, Otobaye, Oghada, Ute-Oha, Eze and Ekpon — maintain strong cultural and linguistic ties with the Anioma people of Delta State and the broader Igbo nation.

Although the proposed Anioma State has yet to secure constitutional backing, the Ika Igbo communities in Edo insisted that exclusion from any eventual arrangement would perpetuate what they described as “decades of administrative suffocation.”

They argued that remaining within Edo State without structural guarantees of inclusion has left them politically vulnerable and economically disadvantaged.