President Umaru Musa Yar�Adua yesterday disclosed that he was ordering a thorough investigation into allegations made by leaders of the Ijaw National Forum on the origins and causes of the recent crises in Port Harcourt and Rivers State as a whole.
Yar�Adua, while having an audience with the delegation led by Chief Edwin K. Clark said that he was also prepared to establish a judicial commission of inquiry into the crisis, if the investigations indicate that there is a need to do so.
�You have made very grave allegations. Put the allegations in writing and we will investigate them. I assure you that our interest is for peace and stability in the Niger Delta. We need peace to achieve rapid development of the region. If it is clearly established that anyone is a party to causing the crises, he will be dealt with according to the law. We will act on whatever comes out of a thorough and just investigation,� he said.
The President also assured the delegation that he would initiate further dialogue on plans to relocate residents of the waterfront areas of Port Harcourt.
Speaking to State House Correspondents after the meeting, Clark alleged that highly placed individuals and office holders in and outside the state who belonged to cult groups caused the crisis in Rivers State.
He said there were over 103 cult groups in Rivers State and were being financed and patronised by politicians both inside and outside government.
He said a situation whereby from 1999 till date Rivers State is infested with cults is not acceptable. �There are over 103 cult groups in Rivers State. And who are the leaders, financiers and the patrons of this cult groups? Politicians both in government and outside government,� he said, adding that some of the financiers were cultists expelled from their universities in their days as students with some being indicted by the State Security Service (SSS) in November 2006.
Clark, who said the Ijaw Elders Forum comprising leaders from the Niger Delta spreading from Akwa Ibom to Ondo States, also alerted the Federal Government on the dangers of demolishing the waterfront in Rivers State, describing it as ethnic genocide.
�The latest matter we have come to talk to Mr. President about is the demolition of the waterfront in Port Harcourt. The people have been there before 1912, before Port Harcourt was founded, the aborigines of the place. If you drive them away within four months where do they go to?� he asked.
On the reaction of the government of Rivers State to the call for state of emergency by non-Rivers elders, Clark said: �Listen, I am the leader of all Ijaws in everywhere they live even in Diaspora. When I was fighting for the release of Asari Dokubo was I a Rivers man? When I was fighting for others was I a Rivers man?�
Asked if he was not worried that the waterfront could be demolished before presidential directive, he said: �It will be a time bomb. Do you know what is called cultural genocide, ethnic genocide, trying to remove a group of people from where they have been? This is what happened in Sudan, this is what happened in Somalia, in Yugoslavia, this was the cause of first and second world wars�.
Also commenting on the issue, the Minister of Information and Communication, John Odey said: �Gentlemen of the press, he (Clark) is the leader of the Ijaw Elders Forum and he has laid his complains to Mr. President, this is a proactive government. We are concerned about the welfare of our people in this country and as such the President is going to take a proactive action to ensure that people in this country do not suffer these inconveniences,� he said.
The Minister also clarified that the Ijaws elders were not making any fresh call for a state of emergency to be imposed in Rivers State but that their main mission was to reassure the President of their confidence in his decision that a state of emergency in the state was not necessary.
Sep192007