The umbrella body of Ijaw youths, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide, has warned Simon Ekpa and his group of Biafra agitators not to include them in their Biafra struggle.
The group insisted that the Ijaw people are not part of Biafra and will never be.
IYC stated this while responding to a video on X platform where Ekpa claimed that the Ijaws are part of the Biafran state.
Speaking via a statement on Friday by the national spokesman for IYC, Amb. Binebai Yerin Princewill, the group said the the Ijaw people would not tolerate any other reckless comment about their people and territories belonging to the Biafra.
Princewill said: “The attention of Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide has been drawn to a strange video by one Simon Ekpa, who is from the eastern part of Nigeria, now masquerading as the leader of Biafra in exile.
“In the said video posted on X, he tried to establish Ijaw territories as part of his imaginary Biafra state.
“In the said video, Ekpa expressed the point that Nigerian soldiers attacked his Biafra people and Biafra republic. He was simply referring to the Okuama attack in Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State on March 14, 2024 wherein 17 soldiers were killed and the subsequent onslaught carried out by the military on Igbomotoru and Peremabiri, Ijaw communities in Bayelsa State.
“The fundamental claim the renegade Biafra nationalist is making is that both Okuama community in Delta and Igbomotoru in Bayelsa state are part of his purported Biafran State. He thus threatened to unleash mayhem on Nigerian soldiers to avenge the death of civilians who had lost their lives in the military onslaught.”
Speaking further, Princewill noted that Ijaw people had never at any point in time been part of Biafra and can never be part of Biafra
“The struggle of the Ijaw people is majorly in resource control and not a secessionist movement. We have our own struggles, and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) also has their own separate struggle. The Ijaws are not part of their Biafran struggle and ideology,” he added.
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