An Itsekiri indigene, Romeo Ogedegbe, has urged President Bola Tinubu, the National Assembly, NSA, INEC, and the international community to wade into the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, INEC, delineation proposal in Warri Federal Constituency.

Ogedegbe, in a statement, described the proposal as fraudulent, saying Itsekiri indigenes would no longer remain silent over the matter.

According to him, the proposal was a legal way of denying the Itsekiri any representation in the National Assembly.

His words: “We, the sons and daughters of the Itsèkiri Nation, have watched with great concern and righteous indignation the recent outbursts, veiled threats, and coordinated campaigns of blackmail and ethnic insult directed at President Bola Tinubu, First Lady Oluremi Tinubu, and other well-meaning Nigerians, by elements from certain Ijaw quarters. This aggression, born out of desperation and entitlement, follows the fraudulent INEC delineation proposal spearheaded by Prof. Rhoda Gumus, an Ijaw daughter, who has manipulated her national assignment to serve a narrow, ethnically-driven agenda.

“Let it be known, without ambiguity, that this brazen assault on truth, fairness, and constitutional justice is not only fraudulent, it is provocative. It seeks to upend the foundation of representation in Nigeria’s democracy by attempting to deny the Itsèkiri nation, whose ancestral home and natural resources form the bedrock of the Warri Federal Constituency, any representation in the Green Chamber of the National Assembly.

“We state for the record that Warri Federal Constituency is the ancestral homeland of the Itsèkiri people. The Urhobo and Ijaw, who are customary tenants within our territory, by history, treaties, and settled law, cannot suddenly lay claim to majority status based on falsified demographic projections or political manipulation. This deliberate distortion of reality, enabled by underhanded financial influence from certain elements in Gbaramatu, cannot and will not stand.

“We the Itsèkiri are also watching with keen observation, the Delta State Governor and the Delta South Senator who by their silence, have chosen to endorse this fraudulent delineation. In matters this grave, silence is no longer neutrality, it is consent. Let it be known that history is recording every actor and every bystander in this unfolding injustice.

“It is visible to the blind and audible to the deaf that there is no ethnic nationality in Nigeria, no matter how small, that is not represented in the Green Chamber, yet INEC’s treacherous delineation, if allowed, would make the Itsèkiri nation, a major contributor of over 30 per cent of Nigeria’s crude oil and more than 70 per cent of Delta State’s economic lifeline, the first and only ethnic group to be stripped of Federal Representation. This is not a mistake, thIs is an attempted political extinction in broad daylight.

“Let this serve as a final notice, the Itsekiri people will not sit idle. We will not be marginalised, erased, or pacified. We shall mobilise, organise, and resist, peacefully, lawfully, but with unrelenting resolve. If necessary, we will confront anything with all we have, we shall spill the last drop of our blood to protect what is rightfully ours.

“To those Ijaw elements who are sponsored to be threatening unrest in the Niger Delta, be reminded that violence cannot legitimize fraud, and ethnic intimidation will not overrule historical truth. Nigeria is not governed by ethnic supremacy but by law, justice, and equity. Let no one be deceived, the Itsèkiris will rise to defend our land, our name, and our rightful place.

“We call on the President, the National Assembly, NSA, INEC, and the International Community to take swift and decisive action to reverse this injustice and restore sanity to the delineation process. The future of Nigeria’s unity and democracy cannot be mortgaged on the altar of ethnic desperation.”