Bayelsa IPOB To Ijaw Youths: "You Don’t Know Your Enemies”
It is a thing of shame to see the most respected group among Ijaw people allow itself to be ridiculed by the unguarded utterances of one man, whose claim to Ijaw descendancy is at best questionable, to issue a press statement against the great Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB, threatening to ‘beat’ Biafrans who are themselves of Ijaw nationality and indigenes of Bayelsa State. Unbeknown to Mr Olorogun Kennedy whose first name points to his true origin, Bayelsa State and Ijawland is the birth place of Biafra. Mr Olorogun Kennedy is a DSS informant craving the attention of his Arewa mastera by making attention grabbing comments on the pages of newspapers to attract more financial reward from those that have rendered Niger Delta desolate.
This is so shameful because it is obvious that those leading IYC central zone knows nothing about Ijaw people, history, struggle, survival and enemies. Yes, it is obvious they don’t know the enemies of Ijaw people because if they had known they wouldn’t have ignored the Ijaw community, Bilabiri burnt down by the Nigerian military to come and be threatening IPOB who are the only voice speaking against such evil in Ijawland. Mr Olorogun is pretending he was not aware of previous and ongoing dialogue between IPOB leadership and prominent Ijaw people in disapora.
Maybe Mr Olorogun is not aware that IYC Elders Council publicly hosted our leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in Igweocha (Port Harcourt) in 2017 at a public event held in Niger Street. One will begin to wonder who this man is truly representing, is it the Ijaw people or the enemies of Ijaw people?
Boko Haram, herdsmen, ISWA etc and all other terrorist organizations in the north have killed countless Nigerians and Nigerian military officers yet no northern community has been burnt to the ground, rather they keep sending more soldiers from Biafra, Oodua and the Middle Belt origin to be killed in the name of preserving Nigeria’s territorial borders. Nigerian army has never taken offense and burnt down communities as a result of the activities of these terrorists but at the slightest provocation of sea pirates in Ijawland they will take offense and burn down the properties of law abiding Ijaw citizens yet IYC has been mute about this.
The whole world knows that IPOB is the only organisation bold enough to confront the excesses of the terrorist government of Nigeria and if IYC central zone is standing against IPOB but mute against the evil meted upon Ijaw people by the oppressive Nigerian military then it means that their loyalty is no longer towards Ijaw people but those who oppress us.
Again, I said they don’t know the Ijaw struggle nor the Ijaw history. I say this because they claim that Ijaw Nation is not Biafra and accused IPOB of attempting to cause trouble in Ijawland which according to them is not Biafra. This is not only hilarious but appears to be informed by ignorance. Funny enough, no one can tell the Biafra story without mentioning Ijaw, not even Igbo which he was warning in his so called letter. Biafra is a country that began it’s advancement from the coast, from Ijawland. Before the creation of what is called Nigeria today (before 1914), every enlightened Ijaw man knew he was a Biafran and that his nation Ijaw is one among many in the Biafra territory. This is why Major Isaac Adaka Boro in his book “The Twelve Days Revolution” where he was trying to describe the location of the Ijaw Nation he was agitating for which he called “Niger Delta Republic”, he wrote and I quote “the Niger Delta we shall consider is strictly the area occupied by the Ijaws, the aboriginal tribe of the Delta. It spans the COAST of the BIGHT of BIAFRA, from the Forcados River to the Opobo River and upstream to the Niger tributaries of the Nun and Forcados Rivers.”
To confirm the consciousness of Biafra in enlightened Ijaw men of old, one year after Isaac Adaka Boro’s declaration of the Ijaw Nation he called Niger Delta when the defunct Eastern region which comprised of most parts of the Biafran territory in Nigeria wanted to go her separate ways from Nigeria because of genocide against Biafran people by the rest of Nigeria, another Ijaw son who died as a king in Ijawland, Frank Opigo reminded the Eastern Assembly that the identity of our collective people is Biafra and the name was adopted because no one could dispute that reality. How then can anyone say Ijaw Nation is not Biafra when Biafra herself got her name from an Ijaw body of water which the oppressive Nigerian state changed after the genocidal war to the name of an Ijaw kingdom Bonny. What is called Bonny River today was once called Biafra River.
I want to call on the IYC President and every other Ijaw leader to reprimand IYC central zone chairman and call him to order because he obviously doesn’t know the dictates of his office. There are many ways through which he can seek relevance but using the hallowed name of IPOB to attract cheap publicity will be his undoing. For the avoidance of doubt IPOB meetings in vsrious zones were held last Sunday across Bayelsa State and will continue to hold in Yenegoa Province Biafraland until eternity.
Nigerians and observers of politics in Niger Delta should know this latest utterance from Mr Olorogun has the hand of DSS written all over it because the government in Abuja are still smarting from the declaration of South South & South East monachs that they support Biafra. What Mr Olorogun just did is nothing more than a mere stunt to keep his DSS masters happy. His actions are that of a loyal informant, he should be disregarded.
COMRADE EMMA POWERFUL MEDIA AND PUBLICITY SECRETARY FOR IPOB