While demanding their urgent reinstatement,the group maintained that “anything other than this within a few days from now will lead to total shutdown of the NNPCL activities across the country”.
This was contained in a statement signed by Spokesman of the group, Binebai Yerin Princewill, copy of which was made available to journalists in Warri.
According to the IYC, “this forceful retirement of Ijaws in NNPCL is something that we will resist with the last drop of our blood”.
The group stated that it “sees the exercise as an attempt to exclude the Ijaws from the scheme of things and a well hatched plot to only employ Northerners and Yorubas in NNPCL”.
IYC therefore called for a quick reversal of the issue as soon as possible failure of which it insisted that “the entire Niger Delta community will be left with no other choice but to shutdown NNPCL and other oil activities in the country”.
Also, the group threatened to resist, at all cost, the purported buying of AGIP oil company by OANDO “without making it public for qualified Ijaws and Niger Deltans to bid for its take over”.
The group called on the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu led Federal Government to urgently wade into the matter to avoid the wrath of Ijaw sons and daughters.
“To us as a people, while we love Nigeria as a country and will be ready to do all within our powers for a united one Nigeria, we will not accept any attempt to unjustly undo sons and daughters of Ijaws occupying such sensitive offices in the Nigerian State, it is the promise of IYC that we will not allow this injustice to fester”, the IYC stated further.
The statement noted that “the Ijaws cannot continue to suffer the brunt of oil and gas exploration activities in Niger Delta and could be reduced and prevented by the Federal Government of Nigeria by not allowing their sons to have a say in the oil sector. We cannot be punished as a people for feeding the country”.
