Simon Utebor, Yenagoa
The peace accord brokered by the Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson and an Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark, to resolve the leadership crisis in the Ijaw Youth Council has suffered a setback as the Eric Omare-led faction calls their bluff.
Dickson’s nine-member Eminent Persons Peace and Reconciliation Committee headed by Chief Joshua Fumudoh to look into the succession crisis rocking the umbrella body of the Ijaw youths submitted its report to the governor and Clark on Wednesday in Abuja.
The same day after receiving the committee’s report, Ijaw leaders were said to have inaugurated Mr. Roland Pereotubo-led executive.
A Bayelsa State Government House statement said that their inauguration came after due and intense deliberations by very eminent persons, elders and leaders of the Ijaw nation, arising from the report submitted by the Fumudo executive.
They were administered the oath of office by Selekowei Larry, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria in the presence of Dickson, Clark and other eminent persons and leaders in Ijaw land at the Asokoro residence of the Ijaw leader.
Dickson charged the newly-inaugurated IYC leadership to work for the collective interest of the Ijaw nation, while urging them to make peace with the others.
He said based on the report submitted, the Peretubo-led IYC executives, who were elected at the unity convention in Okrika were recognised as the authentic IYC new leadership because the Okrika election complied substantially with the electoral principles of the council.
But the Eric Omare-led IYC rejected the peace accord, saying that he remained the President of the IYC.
He noted that the Fumudoh-led peace committee set up by Dickson to resolve the crisis had further caused division among Ijaw youths.
The factional IYC president said, ‘’We state that this decision was premeditated and the height of injustice. The role of the Elders Committee was to reconcile the two factions and not to assume the role of a court of law by legitimising one faction.
“It is only a court of law that can pronounce on the legality or otherwise of the two conventions that gave birth to the two executive councils of the IYC.
“We totally reject the reason given for the committee’s decision that the Burutu Convention was only attended by two former national executive committee members while eight former executive members attended the Okrika convention.
“This position is very far from the truth. The Okrika convention took place on the 5th of March, 2017 by which time the tenure of the Udengs Eradiri-led executive council had expired on the 2nd of March, 2017; hence members of that executive council had no power whatsoever to carry out any executive function.”
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