Originally scheduled to hold on Monday, the election was however aborted following protest over alleged inclusion of fictitious names into the delegate list purportedly by the electoral committee which is being accused of doing the bid of a power-broker in the country.
The development is already generating reactions with a Warri-based lawyer, Eric Omare, lamenting that the Ijaw Youth Council was on its way to extinction.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Omare said it is a shame that some persons are gearing up to hijack the IYC election to their advantage.
“It is sad and disheartening that as Ijaw people, we cannot even conduct an election involving only 100 people/delegates and involving only Ijaw people.
“The inability to conclude the election and the subsequent events have led to a near state of anarchy and total disintegration of the once cohesive Ijaw Youth Council worldwide that championed and internationalised the struggle for resource control,” he said.
Omare , a candidate for the position of IYC spokesperson, alleged that the election earlier slated for Monday was cancelled because the electoral committee released a list of delegate filled with fictitious names, excluding legitimate clan delegates who were nominated to votes during the election.
He noted that despite the development, the electoral committee went ahead with the exercise which was later cancelled following wide spread protest which led to the blocking of the East-West Road.
Explaining how the aborted election went, Omare said; “Thereafter, after voting was concluded, the collation of results started. The collation was successfully done for the positions of Mobilisation Officer, Treasurer and Woman Leader.
“However, when it was the turn for the collation of the votes for spokesman, it was observed that the numbers of votes cast were more than the accredited voters. Whereas, the numbers of accredited delegates/voters were 99 the total number of votes cast was 103
“Similar irregularity was observed with regard to the collation of the result for the Financial Secretary. Hence, there was serious disagreement between the agents/aspirants and the members of the Electoral Committee.
“After, the several hours of argument, it was unanimously agreed that the entire process has lost credibility and the election was accordingly cancelled apart from the election of the Treasurer, Woman Leader and Mobilisation Officer,” he said.
He said the entire process was thereafter cancelled.
“Therefore, the election for the position of Spokesman, Secretary, Financial Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Deputy President and National President was inconclusive and cancelled,” he said.
He therefore alled on prominent sons and daughters of Ijaw nation, particularly President Goodluck Jonathan, Ijaw foremost leader, Chief (Dr) E. K. Clark, Presidential Advisers on Niger Delta, Hon. Kingsley Kuku, Oronto Douglas and others to intervene in order to save the Ijaw Youth Council from going into extinction .
“If urgent steps are not taken, the IYC in the next few days and weeks would have multiple presidents, secretaries, spokesmen, ” he said, adding “It must be pointed out that whoever benefits from this highly flawed process would be carrying on a credibility burden on his head and would lack the moral fibre to question the activities of government and multinationals in the Niger Delta and lead Ijaw people in the struggle for the actualisation of resource control and self determination for which the IYC was formed.”
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