TRACKING_____The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) worldwide frowns at the inclusion of ijaw territories into the presentation for sovereign right by the purported Oduduwa Republic.
The IYC transition implementation committee chairman, Kennedy Olorogun while addressing newsmen in yenagoa, bayelsa state. He said, “ordinarily, we have nothing against people fighting for self determination as we have also agitated in our famous “Kaiama declaration”
However, the recent presentation by the Oduduwa republic to be part of the Indigenous People organisation of the United Nations, included Ijaw lands and territories in the present Edo and Delta States as part of their Oduduwa Republic plan. This is unacceptable!
He emphatically stated that, the Ijaw territories should be left out of the composition of the Oduduwa areas.
He said the Ijaw people are indigenous and distinct people in Nigeria and Africa so are not part of any other ethnic nationality in Nigeria.
The Ijaw territories of Egbema, Okomu, Gbarai, Olodiama and Furopagha in Edo State and Gbaramatu, Ogbe-Ijoh, Isaba, Egbema and Diebiri in the Warri Federal Constituency of Delta State which were included as part of the Oduduwa Republic are not Yoruba lands but are owned by the Ijaw people, thereby calling on the promoters of the Oduduwa Republic to remove those areas from their map as part of their Republic. “We are not part of their Republic and do not desire to be”.
On a final note, he calls on the Indigenous people organisation of the United Nations to be aware that the ijaw ethnic nationality are not part of the purported Oduduwa arrangement
