Delta state governor, Ifeanyi Okowa has described the Isoko people as bunch of “miscreants” for embarking on a protest against him over what they termed marginalization.
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The Isoko National Youth Assembly, (INYA), as well as women and men on Monday staged a mass protest blocking the ever busy Isoko-Kwale-Asaba road, to register their protest against governor Okowa for what they called marginalization and failed promises of Okowa led government, especially the abandonment of the Isoko section of the Ughelli-Asaba dualization project.
The visibly aggrieved youths led by the INYA president, Mr. Umuakpo Ovie, also protested against one of their kinsmen who is the Executive Director of Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, (DESOPADEC), in charge of Administration and Finance, Askia Ogieh for allegedly fanning ember of crisis in Isoko land and conniving with some disgruntled elements to embezzle millions of naira belonging to the youth body.
But reacting to the protest, governor Okowa through his Special Assistant on DESOPADEC Matters, Mr. Prosper Edo described the protest participants who are of Isoko extraction as “uninformed miscreants”, insisting that the issue of the Delta State Oil Producing Development Commission (DESOPADEC), one of the issues for which the mass protest was staged only operates the social, security and surveillance fund which has a process that is run throughout the entire five ethnic nationalities in the oil and gas producing communities in Delta state.
In a statement issued and signed on by of the governor by Mr. Edo, and made available to our correspondent in Warri, said there is nothing like youth money in DESOPADEC, adding that “DESOPADEC is made up of five ethnic groups: Isoko, Itsekiri, Ijaw, Urhobo and Ndokwa. What some people claim to be youth money is what we all know as social, security and surveillance fund.
“There is no where any youth body in the five ethnic nationalities that makes up DESOPADEC lay claims to that fund and say it is youth money, there is nothing like that. As an Isoko man and Special Assistant to Delta state Governor on DESOPADEC Matters, I am urging members of the public to clear that misconception from their minds. You cannot on your own take laws into your hands to claim that you are the youth president of a faction of a youth body in Isoko and block government highways. It is criminal and I condemn it in the strongest terms.
“Presently, there are so many youth bodies in Isoko with several factions and for one particular group to make claims to any youth money, assuming, but not conceding that there is youth money from DESOPADEC, is completely erroneous. We have decided stand to correct all these misconceptions because there are persons who will take it as the right thing for people to hear. It is completely wrong.
“I need to set this records straight that there is nothing like Isoko youth money in DESOPADEC. What we have is social, security and surveillance fund that has a process that is run throughout the entire five ethnic group that make up DESOPADEC and not some group of youths coming out to say the money belongs to them and that some persons are with the money. It is completely wrong.”
As at the time of filing in this report, Isoko indigenes have condemned in strong terms, the governor’s statement signed by his Special Assistant.
Meanwhile, classified information at our disposal revealed that governor Ifeanyi Okowa may have concluded plans to arrest the president of the Isoko National Youth Assembly, Umuakpo Ovie and other leaders of the youth body over the protest.
An impeccable security personnel attached to governor Okowa confided in our correspondent that the governor has already briefed the state Director of State Security Service, (SSS) and the commissioner of police on the issue.
According to our security source, Governor Okowa has already scheduled a meeting for Thursday this week in government house, Asaba with the leadership of the youth body from where the youth leaders would be arrested and charged to court the next day.
It was however gathered that some leaders in Isoko at whose instance the meeting was been arranged and well abreast with the governor’s arrest arrangement have passionately appealed to the governor to drop idea to avoid any breakdown of law and order in the state particularly in Isoko nation.
