By Samuel Oyadongha

Yenagoa—Elders and chiefs of Ijaw ethnic nationality in the Niger Delta have expressed worry over the devastating effects of oil and gas explorations in oil bearing communities, warning that Ijaw communities were at the verge of extinction.

The elders and chiefs drawn from over 78 clans in Ijaw nation, under the umbrella body of the Ijaw National Congress, INC, lamented that the oil and gas bearing communities suffer the deleterious effects of oil and gas exploration and exploitation lamenting the inability of the Nigerian state to address the concomitant negative impacts on the health, economy, culture and environment of their people.

The Ijaw nation, in a communique in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, after a two-day pan Ijaw stakeholders summit on The Ijaw Agenda beyond May 29, 2015, said the threat from the destructive effects of the oil and gas exploration was gradually eliminating the environment and the physical resource for the development and survival of the Ijaw ethnic nationality.

The communiqué  was signedby over 24 elders including the President of the INC, Boma Obuoforibo, the first military administrator of the old Rivers State, King Alfred Diete-Spiff, the first civilian Governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Emeritus Professor Ebiegberi Alagoa.