From: Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
The Central Zone of the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) worldwide, on Tuesday, dissociated itself from a recent protest by a faction against the tenure elongation controversy rocking the current board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
The Peretubo Oweilami-led national body of IYC had stormed the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, in the company of a Niger Delta activist, Ankio Briggs, and demanded the dissolution of the Senator Ndoma Egba-led board.
The faction claimed that the tenure of the current Managing Director of NDDC, Mr. Nsima Ekere, had expired insisting that it was the turn of Bayelsa to manage the interventionist agency.
But the central zone of IYC comprising Bayelsa State and some parts of Rivers State has distanced itself from the controversy.
The Chairman of the zone, Mr. Tare Porri, said the entire youths from Bayelsa had earlier taken a position not to distract the current management of NDDC to enable it deliver on its mandate.
Porri declared that IYC central zone would never be involved in the politicization of NDDC management so far as the current board remained focused in giving Bayelsa its share of developmental projects.
While pointing out that the organisers of the Port Harcourt protest failed to even consult the zone, which they claimed was supposed to produce the next management of the board, he warned some Abuja-based politicians against hijacking the IYC to play dangerous politics insisting that Bayelsa remained the epicenter of the council.
“We have said it before and we want to say it again. Count us out of this NDDC tenure controversy. The central zone of the IYC was not aware and was never part of whatever protest that had been done in Port-Harcourt. The zone was never consulted and we don’t know whatever that happened there. We are the epicenter of the IYC, the Jerusalem of the Ijaw nation. Nobody should use the IYC to play party politics in Abuja. Our position as a zone is that IYC is interested in an NDDC board; we are interested in a board that will bring developments to Bayelsa state and by extension, the central zone.”