…26 years of Slavery is Enough.
By Michael Odiah
The Egbema people of Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State on the 13th day of November 2017 engaged in a peaceful protest at the PDP state secretariat in Asaba over modern day slavery which they have suffered for the past 26 years.
Speaking during the protest, Barr. Ugha Kurumah stated that since the beginning of the Warri North Local Government, the Egbema people have never been allowed to produce the local government chairman nor been given the chance to field a candidate from the Community.
Barr Kurumah said that the essence of the peaceful protest is to help eliminate the discrimination against the Ijaw people and to charge the party on the need for a power rotation platform, adding that there has always been a political abracadabra going on in Warri North and that a chairman in the past 26years has been imposed on them and that an Ijaw person who tried to obtain the form was told that the form was not available at the time only for them to discover that an Itsekiri man has gotten the form hence the protest to come and obtain the form from the PDP state chairman at the secretariat.
Also speaking at the protest, Comrade Bekesuode Francis Abulu, the secretary of the Egbema Justice and Equity Forum stated that the Governor Dr Ifeanyi Okowa and immediate past Governor Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan are beneficiaries of power rotation as initiated by past Governor Chief James Onanefe Ibori and that Governor Okowa should not turn a blind eye to the slavery of the Egbema people in Warri North adding that the Egbema people have 4 wards while the Itsekiri people had 6 wards and that the staff strength of the Council encapsulates 15 Egbema people out of 762 staff.
Speaking further, Comrade Abulu stated that Sen Okowa has never called both sides for reconciliation and that they should not be given a cause to shut down oil wells in their region which is the language Nigerians understand recalling that when some youths created crisis in 2014, former Governor Uduaghan promised that the next council chairman would come from Egbema but has clearly denied having made such statements but has rather brought his own candidate in person of Hon Abuge Korodudu who hails from Itsekiri.
