By John Paul
A fresh crisis is said to be brewing between the Itsekiris, Ijaws and Urhobos in Warri, Delta State, over the recent delineation of electoral wards in Warri Federal Constituency by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
The Itsekiri are reportedly upset over the proposed new of electoral boundaries drawn by INEC, in compliance with a Supreme Court judgment which seems to have created a new political reality in the area.
While the Urhobos and Ijaws are said to have welcomed INEC’s delineation as a fair expression of the true demographic structure of the Warri Federal Constituency, the Itsekiris are reportedly miffed at the development.
In the new INEC electoral map, Warri North comprises of 18 wards with the Ijaw communities having 10, and the Itsekiri eight. Warri South West comprising of 19 wards has Ijaw with 15 and Itsekiri four.
Similarly, Warri South comprising of 20 wards grants Ijaw three wards, Itsekiri 8 and Urhobo 9.
But the Itsekiris, under the aegis of Itsekiri Youths Elites (IYE), are having none of it. In their official reaction developments in the area, they vowed to resist INEC’s new electoral map, even as they accused the Urhobos of planning to remove the Itsekiri Warri Council Chairman, Agbateyiniro Weyinimi Isaac, and replacing him with the Urhobo Vice Chairman, Kingsley Edafiadjebre.
Shortly after declaration of the delineation by INEC, Eyara community in Okere-Urhobo, Warri, was allegedly attacked by yet to be identified persons.
Indigenes of the community claim that the attack was sponsored and executed by persons aggrieved by the new electoral boundaries drawn by INEC. They have similarly accused the Chairman of Warri South Local Government Council, Isaac, of refusing to respond to the threat to indigenous Urhobos in the area, and have called on Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, himself an Urhobo, to sanction him.
In a statement issued by Comrade Lily-White Esigbone, President of IYE, he accused State Governor, Oborevwori, of bias against the Itsekiri people concerning INEC’s delineation process.
People familiar with the politics of the area informed KTH.ng that the redrawn electoral boundaries have handed political dominance of the Warri Federal Constituency to the Urhobos and Ijaws, in a new political reality that the Itsekiris are finding hard to stomach.
As a result, the Itsekiris have not only approached the courts to relitigate the Supreme Court’s decision on the matter, but have also protested to INEC Headquarters in Abuja to reject the new boundaries.
But Ambrose Ologide, a Warri based journalist, insists that the Itsekiri are crying wolf where there is none. He claims that the Itsekiri have, prior to the Supreme Court’s decision, misled the authorities to claim dominance of the Warri Federal Constituency.
Media consultant to Chief Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo, aka Tompolo, who is the undisputed leader of the Ijaws in the area, Dr. Paul Bebenimibo, said the supreme court decision only effectively established the true political and population demographics in the Warri Federal Constituency and that the Itsekiris have no legal basis to challenge INEC’s actions.