Posted by By Simon Ateba on
Ijaw youths, yesterday, under the aegis of Ijaw Youth Development Association, IYDA, warned the Federal Government to immediately release the leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, Mr.Henry Okah, currently being tried in secret for treason, or face the devastating consequences of war in the oil-rich producing region.
Ijaw youths, yesterday, under the aegis of Ijaw Youth Development Association, IYDA, warned the Federal Government to immediately release the leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, Mr.Henry Okah, currently being tried in secret for treason, or face the devastating consequences of war in the oil-rich producing region.
The members of the group wearing T-shirts with Okah's photograph emblazoned on them, gathered at the Nigeria Union of Journalists secretariat, Ikeja, Lagos, where a Human Rights group, Human Rights Defenders Network, HURIDEN, was addressing journalists on the ‘illegal detention ‘ of the MEND leader.
IYDA said that the Federal Government can go to the US or Britain to seek military assistance but they will be ‘disgraced‘ in the creeks of the Niger Delta in the event of war.
The National President of IYDA, Comrade Oyobolo, told P.M..News that until justice is done, there will be no peace in the region.
'Yar'Adua can go to America. He can even go to Britain or anywhere, when they come to the Niger Delta, we will disgrace them. We are telling them, this oil is being produced in our villages; we deserve to get a share, but instead of listening to us, they go to foreign lands to seek military assistance to crush our people,' Oyobolo said.
Inscribed on the white T-shirts is: ‘Free Okah, Free Niger Delta‘.
HURIDEN reasoned that if Ralph Uwazuruike, the leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, and Asari Dokubo, a MEND leader, who were charged with the same offences by the Federal Government, could be set free, the case should not be different for Okah.
The wife of Uwazuruike who attended the press conference, said that there can never be peace in Nigeria until justice is done and the government is sincere.
'If I could carry guns, I will. I don't pray to belong to Nigeria. Until there is justice, this country cannot be one. Everything now is going to the North. If you can speak Hausa, you can get whatever you want, ''she said.