The crisis within the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) has taken a dramatic turn as Secretary-General, Nangi Obu rejected his suspension by some executive committee members led by Jonathan Lokpobiri.
Obu’s suspension was announced after he was blamed for the violence that erupted during the IYC Eastern Zonal election in Abuloma, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, leaving 12 Ijaw youths dead and many others injured.
He described his suspension as “dead on arrival” and accused Jonathan and others of being “enemies of the Ijaw nation” with no constitutional right to remove him.
This development has further exacerbated tensions within the organisation.
The IYC Eastern Zonal election on September 14 turned bloody when two rival groups clashed, resulting in the loss of lives and injuries.
Jonathan and his executive members attributed the violence to Obu’s actions, leading to his suspension.
Obu, however, denied involvement in the violence and instead pointed fingers at Jonathan Lokpobiri, the younger brother of Minister of State for Petroleum, Heineken Lokpobiri.
He questioned the constitutional validity of his suspension, emphasising that Jonathan and his allies lacked the authority to remove him.
He said that as president of the council, Jonathan could only partake in electoral processes in other zones as an observer and was forbidden to make himself the generalsimo to dictate and micromanage the outcome of such elections.
Obu recalled that similar elections were held at Jonathan’s central zone in Bayelsa and the western zone in Delta and that Jonathan only went there as an observer.
He, however, said Jonathan took a special interest in the Eastern Zonal election because he had the desire to hand over the Rivers structure to the Minister of FCT, Chief Nyesom Wike, to give him a strong base in Ijaw land to undo his political enemy and Governor of Rivers State, Sir Siminialayi Fubara.
He said Jonathan was deeply involved in the war against Fubara, whom he said deserved the IYC protection being an Ijaw governor, because of his elder brother’s relationship with Wike.
Obu explained that the election was initially scheduled to be held in Opobo, Fubara’s local government area, but Jonathan, on arriving in the area and discovering he could not implement his wish, cancelled it without consulting with the organisers.
He said after the Opobo cancelled the poll, they all decided to take the exercise back there on an agreed date, but that Jonathan opposed the decision and declared that the EL action would be held in Abuloma on September 14th.
Obu called on security agencies to thoroughly, without any bias, investigate the activities of Jonathan and his actions that led to the terrible killings of Ijaw youths in Abuloma.
