The youth wing of Urhobo Progress Union, UPU, has insisted that the Urhobo were being marginalized in staff structures of companies located in Urhoboland.

In a statement by Mr. Marcus Ekure, Public Relations Officer of the Mr. Ovie Igho Anthony-led Transformational UPU Youth Wing, the group said it will review staff structures of all existing companies and businesses in Urhoboland with a view to ascertaining the number of Urhobo workers in the companies, in line with the Local Content Act and catchment area policy.

On the issue of Federal University of Petroleum Resources, FUPRE, it said: “It is clear that the management does not want peace as they have almost defiled all options of peace offered to them by Urhobo youths.

“The management did a counter-response to our claim of marginalization in one of the local newspapers, publishing a fictitious figure and percentage of Urhobo in the lower cadre of non-academic staff and the number of Urhobo lecturers in the institution.

“But they did not publish that of the top management cadre for us to see.

“To the management, we have become fools that they can deceive to believing what they published was the true state of affairs of the staff structure.

“When we said there is a grand conspiracy against the Urhobo nation at FUPRE, some persons may not understand us.

“The unfortunate thing is that some of our leaders and even traditional rulers are playing ball with the perpetrators.

“The university, in the past two years, has repeatedly advertised vacancy at different intervals for principal offices such as the vice chancellor, registrar, bursar, librarian, and so on, yet the institute is yet to get substantive principal officers.

“Contrary to the provision of the law, all the principal officers have been on acting capacity for the past two years for only God knows why.”

The statement said Professor Benjamin Ozumba, Vice Chancellor of University of Nigeria, Nsukka; Professor Faraday Orumwense, University of Benin; Professor Ibrahim Njodi, University of Maiduguri; Professor I. F. Adewale, University of Ibandan, and Professor Joseph Ajienka, University of Port Harcourt, UNIPORT, were examples of vice chan-cellors heading schools located in their area.