“The Earth Knows Its True Children, The Ijaw People Will Not Be Strangers In Their Own Land”___Says Concern Ijaw Stakeholders Of Warri Federal Constituency -

By Uche Alvin

With heavy hearts but unwavering spirit, we rise to speak, not just with words but with the truth of generations. Our silence has been mistaken for weakness, our peace interpreted as surrender and our history buried beneath the weight of manufactured lies and state-sponsored manipulation.

We, the Ijaw people of Warri, can no longer afford to sit in the shadows while others twist our heritage, trample upon our dignity and reduce us to tenants on ancestral soil where our umbilical cords were buried and where our ancestors lived, toiled and died.

Let it be known across Nigeria and to the ends of the earth.
The Itsekiris are not the owners of Warri. They are not the aboriginal people. They came as migrants, as settlers, as guests. And it is to our eternal shame as a people that we welcomed them in peace only for that peace to be weaponized against us.

They came at a time when our canoes had mapped the rivers, our shrines stood unshaken, our ancestors traded with foreign merchants and our culture thrived with dignity. They came with nothing and now claim everything.

It was we, the Ijaws who gave them shelter. We allowed their feet to touch our soil. But today, they use courts, compromised officials and state agencies to claim what was never theirs. They wear the cloak of history but beneath it lies a garment of lies. They manipulate court judgments and parade documents crafted in deceit to silence the true owners of Warri.

We say enough is enough.

Let every Nigerian know that Ijaw land cannot and will never be stolen by deception, nor erased by propaganda. The soil bears witness. The rivers remember our names. The gods of our fathers will not be mocked.

To those who claim that the Ijaws are tenants, we ask, which tenant buries their ancestors on the land? Which tenant owns the mangroves, the creeks, the sacred groves? Which tenant builds homes that are older than your kingdoms?

You cannot fabricate identity through threat. You cannot inherit land by force. You cannot rewrite truth with lies, not when our bones are in the land, not when our spirits walk these waters.

We call on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to stop dragging its feet. The Supreme Court has spoken. The Warri Federal Constituency delineation must be completed in full compliance with constitutional and legal mandates. Justice delayed is injustice empowered.

We call on the National Security Adviser, the Presidency, and Governor Sheriff Oborevwori to take note of the dangerous politics being played with land, identity and people’s lives in Warri. We will not be pushed to the wall forever.

If peace must reign, justice must lead. If there is to be true unity, truth must be allowed to breathe.

We, the Ijaw people, do not seek war. But neither will we accept slavery. The time has come to tell the world: