IYC CRISIS: CLAN HEADS BACK PRESIDENT
Clan heads of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) have queued behind its President, Miabiye Kuromiena, and some members of the Executive Council led by the Deputy President, Mr. Preye Agama. But the group led by Agama insists that the resolution stands as no forum of clan heads can up turn its decision.
A forum of clan chairmen, secretaries and leaders from across the 68 clans of Ijawland decried such move, insisting it was a bad time for anybody to be thinking of disturbing the peace of Ijawland and the Niger Delta.
One of the arrowheads of the forum and a clan leader from Billie in the eastern zone of IYC, Isaac Opiriyabo-Ofori lamented that those who wanted to remove Kuromiena were doing so at a bad time.
His words: 'At a time when we are all working to deliver Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as president of Nigeria for the next four years, these people are bringing up this suspension matter to disturb the peace of Ijawland. If they have any grievance against their president or any differences among themselves, they should have resolved them at a roundtable in-house. They did not even notify the president that they had any issues against him. They just went to announce in the newspapers and on radio that they had suspended him.'
Another clan leader, Dio Reuben from the western zone said the aggrieved executive members should have explored the option of dialogue before taking the action of suspension, which, according to him, was capable of throwing the region into crisis.
Reuben said the forum expressed worry that even when the IYC national convention decided at its meeting held recently in Patani, Delta State, that prominent citizens should step into the matter, the aggrieved executive members did not respond to the olive branch offered them, fuelling speculations that they were being sponsored.
However, the aggrieved executive members declared that the meeting of the clan heads was illegal and all decisions reached null and void.
The Publicity Secretary of the IYC, Jeremiah Owoupele in a statement said it was illegal for Kuromiena to hold meetings with the clan heads when he knew he was on suspension.
The statement reads in part: 'It is illegal and an act of criminal impersonation for Miabiye to hold a meeting with clan chairmen until the six months expire or the parliament says otherwise. Miabiye remains suspended. We are going to ask the law enforcement agents to arrest him. The clan chairmen are directly responsible to the zonal structure headed by a chairman of the same leadership that endorsed his suspension. The clan chairmen as of this moment have finished their tenure, hence they cannot in all honesty lay claim to be legitimately representing their clans.'