A socio-cultural group under the aegis of Benin Solidarity Movement (BSM) has raised the alarm over alleged plot by Ijaw and Itsekiri people to take over Gelegele Community in Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State.
The group, while protesting to the secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Edo State Council, on Monday, displayed placards with various inscriptions and noted that the Ijaw people have already erected a sign post saying the land belong to them.
Spokesperson for the group, Comrade Odion Olaye, described as ‘out of place’, the publication by the Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) which stated that Gelegele belongs to the Ijaws and Itsekiris when there is a Supreme Court judgment which wielded the land to the Benin Kingdom.
He said though the kingdom has been hospitable to all and sundry, non-natives and strangers speaking on behalf of any Benin Community, town, village, and local will no longer be accepted.
Comrade Olaye further stated that all oil business prospects and servicing companies must deal directly with the Benin kingdom as the Ijaws and Itsekiris are not the aborigines.
According to him, “The Ijaws and Itsekiris have taken the oil well in our land to be their private properties. We are aware of the issue surrounding Gelegele land in Benin Kingdom which Oba Erediauwa has fought for and won in Supreme Court.
“As I speak with you, the people have gone to plant sign board in Gelegele claiming ownership of the land. Few days ago, the Ijaw youth Congress also addressed newsmen on that same land claiming Gelegele land to be their own.
“We hereby call on state, federal and all relevant authorities to know that we the Benin people have come, the youths, women, men including the ancestors of the land have risen to fight and claim what belongs to us,” he declared.
Reacting on behalf of Gelegele Community, Engr. Don Ben said everybody from this world migrated from somewhere noting that the Ijaws have been living in Gelegele before the extradition of Oba Ovonramwen in 1897.
“I have one policy, everybody from this world migrated from somewhere. The Ijaws have been here even before the extradition of Oba Ovonramwen in 1897. We have been here for centuries.
“That is where I was born and brought up. We have been intermarrying. We have been doing things in common if they are now using politics to drag us somewhere because a seaport is going to be cited here, is left for the person because the aborigenes of that place will not allow it to happen.
“We have been coexisting for a very long time more than 12 centuries ago. So, a people that have been there for such decades how can you suddenly now say they are settlers? So, everybody comes from somewhere.
” If we met somebody there, we will know we met somebody but we did not meet anybody there. All I want is that every ethnic nationality should be contended with wherever place God has put them and not to go and be lording over other ethnic nationalities.
“We need to live together; the Efik and other people live together, Kalabaries and some other people live together, other groups live together. If you try to incite the youths against themselves when the whole thing escalates and anything happens, there will be a reprisal and if that kind of thing happens, it will result to loss of lives and destruction of property. I am not advocating that such thing should happen but I am saying that anybody that is being pushed should advise himself because a stitch in time save nine we should come together to see how the federal government can develop our land
“If the proposed export processing zone materialises, it wll create jobs and all our neighbours will benefit from it. They will be part of the project so I don’t know somebody is trying to say these persons are strangers and others are indigenes, it is not done. Whatever project or development that is coming there is for everybody.
“For instance when we went into armed struggle on this Gelegele light issue, the light terminated in Gelegele but it pass through so many communities and they are all enjoying it. The light that NNPC did for us, it was Gelegele people that agitated for it and we advocated that each community must have a step down transformer so if you are doing things we should consider how we all can work together in one accord and not to use land to cause acrimony among us”, he explained.
It would be recalled that the Benin monarch, Oba Ewuare II on March 6, while welcoming the acting president, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo to his palace in Benin City, asked the federal government to wade into the conflict between the Benin and the Ijaw who are settling in the state adding that the matter was taken to Supreme Court and judgement was passed in favour of the Benin kingdom and yet the Ijaws were still fomenting trouble in the land.
The monarch also said the benefit of turning the Gelegele river into an export free process zone is countless as it would create jobs for the teeming youths and thereby help curb restiveness amongst them.
(The Sun)
