The Ijaw National Congress (INC) president, Benjamin Okaba, has cautioned the people of the Niger Delta to be vigilant and oppose the divide and conquer strategy being used in the area.
“The Rivers State political crisis is a planned state capture that the orchestrators hope to implement in the entire Niger Delta region,” said Okaba, a sociology professor.
Professor Okaba reportedly said this Thursday at a speech at Rivers State’s News Central Town Hall.
Let me disappoint people who were expecting me to speak as the Ijaw National Congress president; instead, I will speak as a sociology professor, he remarked. We are a divided house, which is not surprising, he said, having heard all of the contributions.
A broken political system is the cause of Rivers Matter, according to the president of INC. When you say “state capture,” you’re referring to the Niger Delta, not the establishment of River State.
Read Also: Police Intercept Woman Carrying 481 Live Cartridges in Nasarawa
He claims that because of the area’s rich oil reserves, the intention is to seize it. He claimed that by dividing the populace and fostering animosity among them, the federal government would have easy access to resources in the area.
Our region is extremely wealthy, and the policies of divide and conquer, balkanization, and forcing people to fight against one another have all been enacted over time. The federal government will start to take advantage of our resources while we applaud those involved, he added, “just like during the colonial era, when a crisis is planned using our own people to cause the crisis.”
The Rivers conflict is not related to ethnic tensions, he emphasized.
For this reason, as president of the Ijaw National Congress, I make every effort to stress that this is not an ethnic crisis whenever I have the chance. Furthermore, he declared, “Anyone who wishes to give it ethnic coloration is an enemy of the Niger Delta.”
He urged the Niger Delta residents to stand together and denounced political figures that prey on the populace for their own self-serving political ends.
