By Emem Idio, Yenagoa

The Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Worldwide, has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the military, police, and all security agencies to stop aiding the Minister of Federal Capital Territory, FCT, and immediate past Governor of Rivers State, Chief Nyesom Wike in the fight with his estranged godson, Governor Siminalayi Fubara.

According to IYC, Tinubu and the security agencies must remove their hands as their interference will mean that they are the ones sending Wike to dare the Ijaw nation.

For allegedly painting the current government of President Bola Tinubu in bad light and becoming a threat to peace, and a danger to our democracy in the country, the umbrella of Ijaw youths have called on President Tinubu to sack Wike.

Spokesman of IYC Worldwide, Amb Binebai Princewill in a text of press conference held yesterday, said less than a year since Governor Siminalayi Fubara, an Ijaw man, assumed office as Governor of Rivers State after 24 years of staying out of power, peace has eluded the state as the battle to topple his government festers, visibly hatched and spearheaded by Wike.

He said the FCT Minister should be held responsible for any breakdown of law and order in the state and called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the military, police, and all security agencies, to stop aiding Wike, as the Ijaw people will fight for their dignity, which has assumed an ethnic dimension.

His words: “The Ijaw Youth Council is taking time to address the press because some elements in the Nigerian State are always in haste to misjudge the Ijaw people whenever they fight back when pushed to the wall. We are reiterating it again and again that Governor Fubara’s tenure must not be truncated, as the Ijaw people will not sit and watch idly. This is not a warning but a daring statement.

“The free reign of impunity perpetuated by Wike in Rivers State, his careless rantings, and outright disregard for the elderly and the insults rained on the entire Ijaw nation and our highly revered leaders, like the late Pa Clark, the Governor-General of the Ijaw Nation, Sen. Douye Diri, the Governor of Bayelsa State, King Diete Spiff, and others, is a fight we will fight to the end. Wike is too infinitesimal to dare the Ijaw nation, the fourth-largest ethnic group in Nigeria, the largest in the Niger Delta, and in Rivers State as well.

“However, it is essential to let the Nigerian State and the world at large know that Wike’s continued insults on the Ijaw nation, his political gimmicks to impeach Governor Fubara by all means, the shooting and injuring of Ijaw youths at Abalama, is an open declaration of war against the Ijaw nation. In the coming days, we advise the military, the police, and all security agencies to keep clear, as the Ijaw people will be taking it up with Wike.

“Whatever happens in the Niger Delta, Rivers State, and Nigeria at large on account of this, Wike should be held responsible. Asawana, Wike cannot stop Asawana, as Asawana is spiritual.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the military, police, and all security agencies, must stop aiding Wike, as the Ijaw people will fight for their dignity, which has assumed an ethnic dimension. Tinubu and the military must remove their hands in this ethnic battle, as their interference will mean that they are the ones sending Wike to dare the Ijaw nation.

“The impunity in Rivers State orchestrated by Wike must stop. First, in 2023, police shot and even fired teargas at Governor Fubara, yet the Presidency did not do or say anything. The Governor was locked outside by lawmakers in his bid to implement the Supreme Court judgment recently in Port Harcourt they constantly humiliated the Governor, yet the President has remained mute. Even with the intimidation and shooting of innocent Ijaw sons and daughters at Abalama by the military, the Presidency has continued to remain quiet.

“The IYC is not seeing this as a mere political battle against Governor Fubara but a surreptitious move to steal and hijack the Ijaw tenure as Governor in Rivers State. We don’t want to understand any other language than Fubara being the Governor of Rivers State to complete his tenure(s) as he and the Rivers State people so please.

“It is our resolve that, while the IYC has its plan on this matter, it is now time for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to sack Wike as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory for clearly painting the current government in bad light, for becoming a threat to peace, and a danger to our democracy as a country. This time, he has chosen the wrong battle. We have tolerated the excesses of Wike enough.”