LAGOS JUNE 11 (URHOBOTODAY)An Ijaw youth group, the Concerned Nigerian Youth Forum (CNYF), has expressed dismay at what it described as the brazenness at which the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Orubebe, and his agents have been attacking the elder statesman and Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin K. Clark, in some national dailies.
Demanding an unreserved apology to be made to Chief Clark in the same national dailies by Orubebe, the group lamented that it was Edwin Clark who brought Orubebe to national political limelight, even when he was rejected by the late President Shehu Umaru Yar’Adua and the former governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori.
It therefore described Orubebe’s attack on the Ijaw leader as “an abomination to tradition and custom as well as a trifle too embarrassing.”
Advising the Minister not to mix up the extant constitutional obligations of public office with the delusion of a grandeur about 2015, the group said in a statement issued on Tuesday that “the elder statesman and technocrat, Chief E.K Clark, was merely reminding Mr. Minister of the morality of the presidential directive.”
According to the group, “Let us inform those misled benefactors who attacked Chief. E.K. Clark that Godsday Orubebe has challenges from his political antecedents. Just because he wanted to be Special Adviser under James Ibori, Orubebe betrayed the whole of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in Delta State and defected to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for his own selfish and personal intent.
“We are dismayed that Elder Godsday Orubebe contemplated and even sponsored attacks in newspapers on Chief E.K Clark, a highly respected leader and 86-years-old statesman for reasons we are so far unable to fathom. What a naked dance by Elder Orubebe but alas! “Ingratitude is a despicable sin.” Shakespeare personified it as a “marble-hearted fiend.”
“It is with nostalgia and melancholy that we remember how members of the Delta State Leaders and Stakeholders Forum contributed money for transport so that Elder Godsday Orubebe could attend his Senate screening ceremony prior to his confirmation by the Senate as Honourable Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“Therefore, we advise the Honourable Minister to concentrate on his ministerial work to uplift the country and the Niger Delta in particular which our people have so much expectation for.
“We therefore wish to advise Elder Godsday Orubebe, his political associates and followers to pursue their political ambition with decorum, peacefully and without acrimony; and desist from any further attacks on the person of Chief E. K. Clark so as not to cause crises and dissentions in the Ijaw Nation,” the group said in the statement.
The group however extolled the virtues of Chief Edwin Clark as it lauded his leadership role in the resolution of the Niger Delta crisis.
“ He has led his Ijaw people from the six coastal States to all peace negotiations convened on the conflict and continues to seek succour and relief for his oppressed tribe who unanimously acknowledge him as Ijaw national leader.
“We seize this opportunity to once again urge all political office holders particularly at the national level to concentrate on their jobs and bring democracy dividends to the people. We urge Elder Godsday Orubebe to use the same national press to immediately render unreserved apology to the revered Papa Edwin Kiagbodo Clark and further call his surrogates to order. This should be done without pre-conditions demanded on the elder statesman,” the group said.
Source: THEWILL