Ijaw youths in Delta, Bayelsa Protest Against Abduction of IYC President

There was stress in Delta and Bayelsa and Delta states, yesterday, as Ijaw youths from each states protest to the Niger Delta Growth Fee (NDDC) over the kidnapping of Nationwide President of the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC), Peter Igbifa.

Igbifa was reportedly kidnapped on Tuesday in Port Harcourt, Rivers States by unidentified gunmen, just a few hours earlier than the expiration of the 30-day ultimatum it issued to President Muhammadu Buhari to call a substantive board for the NDDC.

The IYC Worldwide and leaders of different ethnic nationalities within the Niger Delta had on April 25, 2021 given a 30-day ultimatum to the to the presidency to nominate a substantive board for be NDDC or face their fury.

They insisted on the desolation of the Interim Administration Board, headed by a Sole Administrator, Effiong Akwa and appoint a substantive board, failing which they might shut down all oil installations within the area and cripple the nation’s financial system on the expiration of the ultimatum.

The protest, which was staged on the NDDC state places of work alongside the Edjeba Highway, Warri, Delta State and Yenezue-Gene space of Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, disrupted vehicular and enterprise actions for a number of hours.

Carrying placards with inscriptions as: Restructure Nigeria Now; IOCs Should Not Remit $1.6b To NDDC Now; We search Justice In NDDC and FG Ought to Appoint Substantive Board For NDDC Now, they accused President Muhammadu Buhari of state-sponsored abduction of Igbifa.

 

They warned that the next protest on the issues and development considerations of the area could be a complete and mass motion. In a communiqué issued on the finish of an emergency assembly and signed by its Deputy President, Savior Olali, Nationwide Spokesman, Ebilade Ekerefe and others the group alleged that the presidency sponsored Igbifa’s abduction.

“Though his abduction got here to us as a shock and provocative, we’ve since discovered that the Federal Government sponsored and executed the motion. ”

“He and other Nationwide Government members of IYC have been invited to Abuja for a gathering with the Interim Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Col. Milland Dixion Dikio (rtd.), earlier than armed males with commonplace IWI Tavor rifles and Uzi sub-machine weapons, kidnapped him.

The IYC condemned the kidnapping and urged the Federal Government to make sure that he was launched unconditionally. MEANWHILE, Ijaw youths additionally blocked the Mbiama-axis of the East West road in protest towards Federal Authorities’s refusal to inaugurate a substantive board of the NDDC. It was learnt that the youths shut down the Bayelsa State workplace of the NDDC, earlier than continuing to Mbiama.