The Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Worldwide Friday condemned the alleged invasion and ransacking of the palace of His Royal Majesty, King Ateke Tom, by soldiers deployed on election duty at Okochiri town in Rivers State.
The IYC spoke via a statement signed and made available to DAILY POST by its President, Barr. Pereotubo Roland Oweilaemi.
It said the alleged act of aggression is not only barbaric but sacrilegious, and should be condemned by every well-meaning Nigerian.
“IYC cannot comprehend why the Ijaw people are made the scapegoats of the FG Government’s desperation in deploying the military to rig the elections for the APC candidates?
“Only recently on the 23rd of February, 2019 during the presidential and national assembly elections, the Ijaw nation lost many of her promising youths to soldiers’ invasions in Rivers and Bayelsa states.
“Our youths were murdered in cold blood by the blood-thirsty soldiers in the guise of warding off ballot snatchers in those States,” the statement read.
The IYC also said that the “invasions and ransacking of the house of the most respected first-class King is the worst form of atrocity committed against our rich tradition.
“The Ijaw nation, views the action of the marauding soldiers as a declaration of war against our people.
“There is no King in the North that has been this humiliated the way our traditional institutions have been subjected to such public ridicules.
“Yesterday was Gbaramatu King, today is now the turn of King Tom Ateke. We don’t know who is going to be next.”
The IYC held that, “The Ijaw nation will not fold our arms and allow the continues humiliations of our sacred traditional institutions.”
According to the group, “These serial attacks on our traditional institutions are a direct assault on our collective resolve to keep faith in the Nigerian forced marriage despite our debilitating plights in this structurally defective entity.
“If the FG sees the Ijaw nation as an equal partner in the corporate existence of Nigeria then it must immediately call these battle-ready and gun wielded military men to order.
“Nothing pains the Ijaw man than seeing our sacred traditional institutions being subjected to public disrepute.”
The IYC also stated that, “Nigerian armed forces should get ready to commit genocide against armless Ijaw people because we will henceforth, defend the illegal and sacrilegious invasions of our sacred traditional institutions with our bare hands. Our customs and traditions are our identity and we will defend them even with the last drop of our blood.”
