We’re not part of Biafra, Ijaw Youth Council tells Simon Ekpa

The Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Worldwide, has distanced itself from the Biafra agitator, Simon Ekpa, declaring that Ijaws are not part of Biafra.

The youth council announced this in response to a video Ekpa released on X  where he alleged that Ijaws are part of Biafran State.

In a statement on Friday by its national spokesman, Binebai Yerin Princewill, said the Ijaw people would not put up with any more insensitive comments that suggest their people and regions are part of Biafra.

According to Princewill: “The attention of Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Worldwide has been drawn to a strange video by one Simon Ekpa, who is from the eastern part of Nigeria, now masquerading as the leader of Biafra in exile. In the video posted on X, he tried to establish Ijaw territories as part of his imaginary Biafra state.

“In the said video, Ekpa expressed the point that Nigerian soldiers attacked his Biafra people and the Biafra republic. He was simply referring to the Okuama attack in Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State on March 14, 2024, wherein 17 soldiers were killed and the subsequent onslaught carried out by the military on Igbomotoru and Peremabiri, Ijaw communities in Bayelsa State.

“The fundamental claim the renegade Biafra nationalist is making is that both Okuama community in Delta and Igbomotoru in Bayelsa State are part of his purported Biafran State. He thus threatened to unleash mayhem on Nigerian soldiers to avenge the death of civilians who had lost their lives in the military onslaught.

“Our late Ijaw hero and foremost nationalist, late Major Isaac Adaka Boro, who is regarded as a champion of minority rights movement in Nigeria, declared the ‘Niger Delta Republic’ on February 23, 1966 a year before late Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu who was the then Governor of the Eastern Region declared the Biafra Republic on May 30, 1967.

“We are Ijaw people. We are Nigerians in the Niger Delta. We don’t have any ties or whatever with the Biafran people and their agitation.

“Finally, the IYC is using this medium to inform the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Nigerian military that all the areas mentioned are not part of Biafra and can never be part of Biafra. IYC will not allow any purported attack on the military in our territories.”