IYC Splits As Factional Leader Emerges

The crises rocking the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) has deepened following the emergence of a factional leadership of the body.
Then leadership headed by Oweilaemi Peretuboh, had emerged after a keenly contested election of the body at a convention in Okrika, Rivers State, in the early hours of last Monday.
The convention was  attended by elders of the council, including Chief Tom Ateke, Asari Dokubo among others.
Addressing newsmen shortly after the convention, Chairman of the Electoral Committee, Ebi Waribigha, said that the convention was in line with the Ibono constitution, stressing that the process for the election of the new executive was free, fair and transparent.
Waribigha, said that over 110 delegates, 30 from each zone, and 10 each from Lagos and Abuja participated in the election.
He said that the convention at Okrika was endorsed by elders of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), stressing that the leadership produced at the convention was the only competent executive that will speak for the IYC.
Also speaking, an ex- Niger Delta agitator, Alhaji Asari Dokubo, urged the Ijaws to support the  new leadership to enable it succeed.
He said that the only leadership of the council recognised in the Ijaw nation was the one which emerged at the Okochiri Convention in Okrika.
However, in a telephone interview with The Tide, the spokesman of the Eric Omare-led faction, Barrister Henry Iyalla, described the new leadership that emerged at the Okrika convention as fake and  unknown to the IYC constitution.
He said that the Eric Omare faction was the legitimate leadership of the body.