The Ijaw National Development Group/Ijaw Peoples Assembly, leading Ijaw group, has congratulated Professor Benjamin Okaba on his emergence as the President of the Ijaw National Congress.

The INDG message was made known through a statement that was jointly singed by its President, Benjamin Nanaghan, and its Secretary, Dortimi Kester, on Thursday.

The group’s congratulatory statement can br seen below;

“The President,
Ijaw National Congress,
Ijaw House,
Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.

On behalf of the Ijaw National Development Group/Ijaw Peoples’ Assembly (INDG/IPA), we wish to congratulate you and your fully studded Management Team on your globally acclaimed victory as the President of the Ijaw National Congress, the inauguration which took place on the 14th May, 2021.

The Ijaw Nation has elected you not because of your professorial laurels or academic excellence; rather, among the many likely favourable reasons, your “Ijawpatriotism” is indisputably at the core of Ijaw people’s choice for you to lead them at this challenging times of our national history.

Pls remember Sir, that this victory we now savour is not for you alone but for the hapless, deprived and neglected Ijaws in the Niger Delta and the furthermost helms around the globe. The Ijaws have been robbed and are still being robbed of their land, their wealth, their fauna and flora, their right to safe and sustainable environment and of mineral resources that God has bequeathed to them. And with the recent award of the Marginal Oil Fields while the matter is pending before a court of competent jurisdiction is a clear further attempt to emasculate and enslave the Ijaw Nation by the Federal Government and it’s Agencies. It is an unmitigated travesty of justice to undertake the award of 23 Oil Blocks of Marginal Oil Fields without first commissioning a clear plan for the remediation of the already damaged environment resulting from the inhuman processes and activities of oil and gas exploration.

We salute your courage in accepting this daunting and herculean responsibility. We on our part in the Ijaw National Development Group/Ijaw Peoples’ Assembly promise to support you at all fronts as we together craft our own Bill of Rights to liberate ourselves from this excruciating pangs of man’s inhumanity to man.

Ijaw National Development Group/Ijaw Peoples’ Assembly was formed by our Convener Mr. Dennis T. Banigo in October 2017 with broadened scope and objectives to include an organizational structure that defines more clearly the cultural identity, heritage and mores of the Ijaw Nation. We aspire to strengthen, deepen and broaden the routes to finding answers to the Ijaw question to achieve economic integration and freedom for the Ijaw wo/man anywhere they live in the universe.

Mr. President of the Ijaw National Congress (INC), we of the Ijaw National Development Group/Ijaw Peoples’ Assembly are ready to work in sync and in fullest cooperation with you to lift the Ijaw Nation to its glorious position in the comity of states and nations. We look forward to your re-subscription to membership of INDG, please.

Thank you Sir and God bless Ijaw Nation.

Benjamin Nanaghan Dortimi Kester
President, INDG/IPA Secretary, INDG/IPA”

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