Why we’re against INEC’s constituency delineation — Emami

By Omeiza Ajayi

ABUJA — A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress APC in Delta state, Chief Ayiri Emami, has raised concerns about the delineation of the Warri Federal Constituency, saying the development poses an existential challenge to his people. Speaking in an interview, Ayiri said while they are not against the Supreme Court judgment on the issue, its implementation must be done in a way to satisfy all ethnicities.

He said; “There is a Supreme Court ruling that the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC should delineate Warri Federal Constituency. None of us went against it, but you have to do it religiously with the Electoral Act. But in a situation where you will now begin to take somebody’s Ward and allocate it to another, we will not agree, because those are the injustices one actually complained about.

“Coming to implementation, somebody who had two Wards is now having 10 Wards or 14 Wards. Somebody who had four Wards is now having 14 and somebody who had six, you are now reducing it!

“Why I am faulting INEC is that, if the Supreme Court says do delineation, you can equally write to the Supreme Court because the instrument for the delineation is not a projected census. You cannot use projected census and the last census that was done was not taken. So you (INEC) can tell the Supreme Court and say, “these are some of the issues why I cannot carry out this delineation now.” But you just went and tried to favour some persons.

Even, those who went to court are protesting now. The Ogbe- Ijoh and some people are protesting because what they allocated to them was not what they were expecting.

“In our local government, Warri South, if you want to use it as a state, you will know that you have three cities. You have the Ogbe- Ijoh, you have the Gbaramatu, you have the Ogbodu and the Orere. Now Ogbe-Ijoh is very populated because you have road. It is very close to Orude. From their one Ward, you gave them two. Then Gbaramatu, far close to my place in Escravos which had two Wards, you make them 10. What is the justification? And we are not saying we are going to fight because of this, but INEC must do the needful. And we have told everybody, we have told Mr President, we have told everybody who cares to know that INEC must do the needful or they should investigate that committee that was set up by INEC.

“Everybody has representation by ethnic nationality in the National Assembly. Do you know that Warri Federal Constituency is the only place the Itsekiri can contest? But the Ijaw have Burutu, Patani, Bomadi; the Uhrobos have Ughelli.

The only place we are confined to is the Warri Federal Constituency. Tompolo’s people, if they wake up tomorrow, they can go and contest in Burutu. That is why the deputy governor, Monday Onyeme or Kingsley Otuaro can go to Burutu, but Ayiri Emami cannot go to Burutu. They will want to say, you are talking about ownership . Lagos is there. The Igbos are many in Lagos, does it mean that the Igbo own Lagos? If we want election, we will go and talk to them. What they are trying to do is another genocide on the Itsekiri people, total cleansing of our tribe, not having any representation in anything.

“We had a way we used to do our things before today. In my local government, we are the ones who used to go for the House of Assembly. But we just thought, ‘oh we have been living together, this time, give it to someone else’ and it has almost become a curse to us. Today, he is the one that is pushing that this Ward, they must do it this way. But we are crying out. The needle might be very small, but to swallow it is always very difficult. And the Constitution makes provisions for how to secure the minorities. We must live, we must survive”.

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