Alleged Atlantic Refinery Funds Diversion: Ijaw Youth Council Cautions Against The Victimization Of Ijaws
...Urge Ijaw politicians to find cure for their "drag down" ailment
The Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) has broken its ominous silence on the ongoing investigation of the immediate past Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Chief Timipre Marlin Sylva on allegations bothering on misappropriation of public funds.
In a statement released from his office the Chairman of the Central Zone of the IYC Comr.Ineife Perekosufa describes as unfortunate the issues now trailing Chief Timipre Sylva at this time when the celebrated Ijaw statesman is supposed to be having rest after dutiful service to his nation, a period that saw the passages of the landmark Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
The IYC’s statement highlighted that though the revered Ijaw Group refrains from making conclusive assumptions, the manner by which Sylva’s name has been brought to the public leaves less than nothing for imagination that suggests an underlying political orchestration. Citing the dramatic transformation of Chief Sylva’s charge from funding or sponsorship of a failed Coup attempt, to now misappropriation of public funds, the Central Zone of the IYC queries the veracity of these allegations and likens them to hurriedly but poorly plotted script to bring the image and reputation of the former Governor of Bayelsa state down by all means necessary.
The statement further called on a united Ijaw action on Sylva’s situation. The IYC urged that the right questions must be asked particularly as it relates to the Sylva’s own insinuation that he is currently under some kind of political witch hunting and or persecution by the forces that are uncomfortable with his steady growth in the Nigerian political scene. The statement also alludes to a growing syndrome where Ijaw leaders and politicians drag down one another for transient political privileges.
The IYC expressed its deep contempt for this trend which it calls on members and leaders of the ethnicity to find urgent solution to, as the brother-kill-brother ailment and dog-eat-dog appetite of the Ijaw political class is becoming a major bane of the Ijaw ethnicity and making it a laughing stock as members are willing and ready to sell out one another even at the weakest promise of reward.
The statement stressed that today, Central Zone leadership is united in the course for a brother and as fate would have another kinsman also from the zone is occupying the very exposed office of Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), and it is a widely known fact that Sen. Heineken Lokpobiri is doing very great in his present office, but who knows tomorrow some ill willed persons or administration seeks to drag his stewardship of the office down, the IYC would come out loud and strong in no weaker measure on such an attempt, the messages as emphasized by the mother Zone of the IYC is that Ijaws must show solidarity and stand by one another in as much as we do not seek to promote corruption, or the mismanagement of our common wealth.
The statement concluded by calling on the anti-agencies to make the fight against corruption a more wholistic one across the six geopolitical zones rather always making it a southern or Ijaw affair.
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