“We read with dismay, the publication by Mr. Igoniko Oduma, Special Assistant on Media to the Presidential Amnesty Programme Administrator (PAP), on Friday, to the effect that the President of the Ijaw National Congress (INC), Professor Benjamin Okaba, has commended and endorsed the self acclaimed PAP Administrator, Dr. Dennis Otuaro. As we took in this piece of information, it left us wondering how the INC President could have done this without informing and getting the backing the 17-member executive committee of the INC and its three executive vice presidents.
We at the Project Niger Delta stand for justice, fairness, equity, peace and unity of purpose towards the collective emancipation of the Ijaw ethnic nationality and a host of other ethnic nationalities across the Niger Delta region from their enemies, including Prof. Benjamin Ogele Okaba and his paymasters.
We believed that Okaba’s self-centered antecedents as INC president and his negligence of the ideologies of the INC founding patriarchs have hindered Ijaw people in their pursuit of equity, fairness, peace, justice and unity. We strongly observe with the utmost dismay that Prof. Benjamin Ogele Okaba has belittled himself by sojourning with evil music, and he is dancing to it at the expense of our collective destinies while enjoying our collective prosperity which has been hijacked by his paymasters.
To be clear, we want Mr. President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to take note of the following:
1. The Ijaw National Congress (INC), is the umbrella cultural bloc of the entire Ijaw ethnic nationality, with three executive vice presidents and seventeen executive members, including the publicity secretary, legal adviser and others, set up to pilot the affairs of the Ijaw people. It is noteworthy that none of the above executive members was present when Prof. Benjamin Ogele Okaba endorsed Otuaro and said he had achieved a paradigm shift, but Okaba rather choose to take non-members of the INC and snuck into the Presidential Amnesty Office (PAP) at night to make such a gullible endorsement.
It is very unfortunate that Okaba has betrayed the collective trust reposed in him by the entire Ijaw nation. The INC is not Okaba’s personal business venture and should not be a one man show, but he has so far shamelessly treated it as if it is, and we regard this as an outright betrayal of public trust.
2. Mr. President and his political lieutenants should ignore Prof. Benjamin Okaba’s endorsement of Dr. Dennis Otuaro, as the PAP boss is a clear threat to his mandate. We strongly believe in our collective struggle for equity, justice, fairness, peace and unity of purpose in sharing and allocating our blessings from the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led federal government of Nigeria. We refuse to be intimidated by anyone until our public outcry to Mr. President for justice, equity and fairness is addressed.
3. The act exhibited by Prof. Okaba is unethical and shameful. He belittled himself to the extent of selling his integrity for peanuts, allowing his personal interest to overshadow his duty to the people of the Niger Delta. This is a sad reality.
4. Ideally, the self-acclaimed Administrator should be the one to request to see the INC President and his exco in his Ijaw House to meet with them. Instead, the INC President allowed himself to be bought over with our collective wealth stocked in the hands of our known enemies, and travelled to Abuja to see the self-acclaimed administrator in his office. This should not have happened if Okaba truly he knew his value as the INC President. In addition, Okaba is aware that Dennis has been traveling around the Niger Delta asking for people’s support in order to stay in office as a result of what? What is it he is afraid of? If he indeed has been given full mandate then he should go ahead and work for the public to see. Why is he desperate? Dr Otuaro does not have the interest of the suffering majority amongst the Ijaw populace at heart, and it was never our choice that he be appointed Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Program.
5. We are concerned that a person of Okaba’s status could receive, process and share distorted information about the affairs of the Presidential Amnesty Program before coming out publicly to make comments and remarks. The content of his statement was an embarrassment to his character, as it was laden with inaccuracies. Okaba should be the father he is meant to be. As the President of Ijaw National Congress, he ought to be a voice of truth for the Ijaw Nation, not to be used as an instrument for people who are making use of the resources that are meant to develop the whole Niger Delta, while common Niger Deltans are languishing in abject poverty.”
Comrade Princewill Timipre Ebebi
Executive Director/Coordinator
