Eradiri Urges Dickson, Diri to Join APC to Strategically Position the Ijaw Nation

Olusegun Samuel in Yenagoa

Former President of the Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) and the Labour Party (LP) candidate in the last gubernatorialelection in Bayelsa State, Udengs Eradiri, has urged the Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri and the immediate past governor, Seriake Dickson to join the All Progressives Congress (APC) in order to align the Ijaw nation with the centre.

Eradiri, a former Commissioner in the state, called on Dickson to take the lead, pointing out that by joining the APC, the duo would have strategically and politically  positioned the Ijaw nation at the centre and also sit on table of who decide who gets what in the sharing of the national cake.

He added that the politics of the country was beyond ethnicity and insisted that the Ijaws must play the politics to drive home their agitations and bring development to the oil rich but impoverished region

The former IYC President stated this in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital during an interaction with members of the Federated Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Bayelsa State.

“Governor Douye Diri has been a member of the House of Representatives and senator, Dickson has been a representative too, a governor and now a senator and they have the capacity to be on the table of discourse so that the Ijaws must be represented.

“This is me an Ijaw leader, talking that Nigeria politics goes beyond ethnicity and we must play this politics to be heard. Today, the Senate President and Nyesom Wike, determine what happens in the Niger Delta.

“When Wike said we are minority, we were all shouting here and there, but he is telling you that we are minority in politics. They set-up the South South Development Commission and from a juicy position that Bayelsa had, they stripped us and ended giving us just one of the Executive Director.

“If we had a Dickson or Douye Diri on that table it wouldn’t happen because they would have been consulted the same way Hope Uzodinma is being consulted, the same way Delta State Governor, Sheriff is now sitting on the table. First, he is a governor and second he will be protecting the interest of his ethnic nationality.”