The President of Ijaw National Congress (INC), Benjamin Okaba, has warned people of Niger Delta to remain alert and fight divide and rule scheme being implemented in the region.
The Professor of Sociology, Okaba, said the Rivers State political crisis is a programmed state capture that the orchestrators hope to implement in the whole Niger Delta region.
Naija News reports that Professor Okaba stated this while speaking at News Central Town Hall in Rivers State on Thursday.
“Let me disappoint those who expect me to speak as the president of the Ijaw National Congress; I am going to talk as a professor of sociology,” he said. “I have listened to all the contributions, and it is not surprising that we are a divided house,” he added.
INC’s President noted that “Rivers matter is a symptom of a failing political system. It is about state capture; when you say state capture, it is not about the capture of River State, it is about the Niger Delta.”
According to him, the plan to capture the region is because of its rich oil deposits. He said the policy of divide and rule and setting the people of the region against one another would give the federal government easy access to exploit the region’s resources.
“That’s because our region is very rich, the policy of balkanisation has been penetrated over time, the policy of divide and rule, the policy of making us fight against ourselves. And just like the colonial period, when there is a crisis orchestrated using our own people to cause the crisis, then the federal government will begin to exploit our resources while we clap hands for those persons,” he said.
He stressed that the Rivers crisis has nothing to do with ethnic differences.
“That is why I try as much as possible as president of the Ijaw National Congress to state every time I am given the opportunity that this is not an ethnic crisis. And whoever wants to give it ethnic colouration is an enemy of the Niger Delta,” he stated.
He called for unity of all Niger Delta people and condemned political actors manipulating the people of the region for their selfish political interest.