Delta 2023: Your Aspiration Is Personal, Not Ijaw Agenda, IMG Warns Guber Aspirants

*Says They Are Merely Exercising Their Rights To Freedom of Expression*

The Ijaw Mandate Group (IMG), a socio-political group of the Ijaw nation, has stated that the personal aspiration to be governor of Delta State by some individuals of Ijaw extraction did not make it an Ijaw agenda.

The group made this known in a press statement by Hon. Andaye Dagidi, Coordinating President of IMG and Famous Ofurobiri, after their meeting at Ughelli Garden Motel in Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State, said that no single Ijaw person or group of persons could claim to be more Ijaw than any member, supporter and follower of IMG.

They stated that whether one was aspiring to become the governor of Delta State in 2023, supported or followed, did not add up to making any Ijaw aspirant projecting an Ijaw agenda.

According to the statement, “an Ijaw had aspired and contested to be Governor of Delta State previously in 2015 without Ijaw support because it was not yet the turn for Delta South Senatorial District, where Ijaws belong, which still subsists and is valid till 2031, a salient and incontrovertible rule of PDP.”

“It is therefore erroneous to consider the self-seeking the adventure of some individuals in their quest for the governorship seat in 2023 as Ijaw Agenda. It is inappropriate and a fallacy of the highest order; they are merely exercising their rights to freedom of expression, which is sacrosanct to all,” it added.

“The IMG will continue to canvass, propagate and articulate our position across the nooks and crannies of Ijaw Land, which is considered by the group as a proper and perfect Ijaw Governorship Agenda in Delta State in 2031, which actually begins in earnest from 2023 by our support for Delta Central Senatorial District, thereafter for power to rotate to Delta South Senatorial District in 2031, where our own agenda shall be properly situated and easily realised,” it explained further.

“It is worthy of note that IMG is not, and will not, in any wise speak for the INC, the only mouthpiece of Ijaw people in Nigeria and the Diaspora as it is being misconstrued and canvassed in certain quarters and circles. Rather, we have the guaranteed rights of freedom of association and expression, to wittingly express our own desires to agitate and canvass the yearnings and aspirations as a group and as Ijaw people, which exercise we shall continually do without fear of being cowed or intimidated by anybody or group of persons since our agitations do not fall short nor constitute a contravention or a breach of the public peace,” it maintained.