RE: INEC IS PLAYING WITH THE FRAGILE PEACE— THE DANGER OF DELAYING WARD DELINEATION IN WARRI FEDERAL CONSTITUENCY -

By Esther David

URGENT SOS PETITION TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, INEC, AND THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY

RE: INEC IS PLAYING WITH THE FRIGGILE PEACE— THE DANGER OF DELAYING WARD DELINEATION IN WARRI FEDERAL CONSTITUENCY

From: Ijaw Stakeholders of Warri Federal Constituency
Date: August 6, 2025

To:

President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
Chairman of INEC
National Security Adviser
ECOWAS
African Union
United Nations
International Election Observers
Nigerian Citizens

INTRODUCTION

We write this SOS not with calm but with clenched fists and wounded hearts. We write as a people betrayed, not by warlords or foreign invaders but by the very institutions created to uphold justice and democracy.

For decades, we, the Ijaw people of Warri Federal Constituency, have endured a suffocating injustice. We have watched the Itsekiri minority weaponize colonial favoritism, manipulate ward structures and parade a fictitious kingship, all while branding us tenants on the lands our ancestors founded, farmed and defended with blood.

We did not carry arms. We carried petitions. We did not burn. We built cases. We did not revolt. We trusted the rule of law.

And the Supreme Court vindicated us. In Timinimi v. INEC (SC/CV/1033/2023), justice finally echoed what we have always known that the current political structure in Warri is fraudulent, undemocratic and must be corrected.

But today, two years later, INEC has chosen silence over justice.

That silence is now deadly.

It is a silence that emboldens false landlords.
A silence that reignites ethnic arrogance.
A silence that threatens the fragile peace we fought to preserve.
A silence that mocks the highest court in Nigeria.
A silence that may soon give birth to a storm.

We did not come begging. We came demanding.

Release the delineation result. Respect the judgment. Obey the Constitution. Or prepare to answer for the consequences of your delay.

INEC, YOU ARE PLAYING WITH FRAGILE PEACE: YOUR DELAY IS FUELING ETHNIC TENSION

What INEC is doing or failing to do is not just an administrative delay. It is an incendiary act.

The Ijaw people of Warri Federal Constituency waited 26 years under a fraudulent ward structure designed to keep them politically voiceless. We did not burn buildings. We went to court. We fought through the judiciary. And we won at the Supreme Court in Timinimi v. INEC (SC/CV/1033/2023).

Yet two years after the judgment and one full year after INEC concluded its public hearings, mapping and analysis, no final result has been published.

Colonial Record: CO 554/124/3, British Dispatch to London, 1938:
“It is administratively improper to assign Ijaw and Urhobo lands to the Jekris (Itsekiris), who do not hold native rights over them.”

Prof. Obaro Ikime (1972), Niger Delta Rivalries:
“The Itsekiri dominance in Warri was a colonial arrangement that ignored ethnic composition and geography.”

Now, because INEC refuses to obey the constitution, Itsekiri agitators are using the vacuum to provoke war, distort history, claim Ijaw lands and insult the very legal system that exposed their lies.

INEC’s silence is not administrative, it is complicit. It is dangerous. It is ethnic betrayal.

THE SUPREME COURT HAS SPOKEN — WHY IS INEC STILL SILENT?

Let the world hear this:

Timinimi v. INEC (SC/CV/1033/2023):
The Supreme Court ordered INEC to conduct fresh, fair and population-reflective ward delineation in Warri Federal Constituency.

INEC obeyed at first:

Conducted public hearings in Ogbe-Ijoh, Gbaramatu, Okere, Ubeji etc.

Received demographic, cartographic and electoral data.

Finalized internal technical reports by late 2023.

But what happened next?

Premium Times, March 3, 2024:
“INEC’s Warri delineation stalls as pressure mounts from Presidency-linked stakeholders.”

INEC Confidential Memo, Jan 2024:
“Concerns raised by Itsekiri-linked elites are affecting the final publication of Warri ward structure.”

So we ask again: Is INEC afraid of Remi Tinubu? Of Daisy Danjuma? Of the Olu’s palace?
What happened to your independence?

Section 153(1)(f) & Paragraph 15, Third Schedule, 1999 Constitution:
INEC shall function free from external control and obey judicial orders.

Failure to release the result is contempt of court and sabotage of democracy.

INEC’S SILENCE IS A THREAT TO PEACE — NOT JUST IN WARRI, BUT TO NIGERIA’S INTEGRITY

Let history remember:

1997: When Ogbe-Ijoh was made headquarters, Itsekiris burnt down over 20 Ijaw communities.

2003: When INEC’s neutrality was questioned, the Itsekiris set INEC offices ablaze.

2025: INEC’s cowardly silence now allows these same actors to weaponize propaganda, calling Ijaw and Urhobo people tenants, rewriting land history and threatening violence again.

Daily Times, March 25, 1997:
“Ijaw and Urhobo towns razed in Itsekiri backlash over local government decision.”

National Archives Lagos, CSO 26/Vol. 6/08549:
“In pre-1950s leases, Itsekiri chiefs acted as interpreters, not landlords. Land ownership lay with Ijaw and Urhobo signatories.”

If INEC’s inaction leads to violence, if youth rise again in anger, the world will not blame Ijaw people. The blood will be on the hands of those who lit the match: INEC.

NO FINAL DELINEATION, NO CONTINUOUS VOTER REGISTRATION — THIS IS OUR FINAL WARNING

INEC, you cannot deny us representation and ask us to queue for voter registration.

You gave:

6 Wards to the Itsekiri (a minority),

4 Wards to the Ijaw (the majority),

0 Wards to the Urhobo (owners of Okere, Agbassa, and parts of Ugbuwangue).

INEC Field Survey, 2022:
“Ijaw and Urhobo settlements account for over 70% of polling units in Warri South-West.”

National Population Commission, 2006:
“Itsekiri are below 25% in population.”

So why did you create a system where the minority rules, the majority is silenced and colonial fraud is modernized?

We therefore declare:

No final delineation, no Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) in Warri Federal Constituency.
No CVR, no general election in our axis.
No elections, no democracy in fraud-rigged wards.

CONCLUSION: INEC, YOUR DELAY IS A DANGEROUS GAME

You are playing with the fragile peace of Warri.
You are provoking a demographic time-bomb.
You are betraying the judiciary and mutilating the constitution.
You are disrespecting the Ijaw and Urhobo nations.
You are testing the patience of a people who have followed the law.

We will not burn offices but we will not allow you to burn our future.

OUR DEMANDS

INEC must release the final ward delineation result immediately as ordered by the Supreme Court in SC/CV/1033/2023.
No further electoral process in Warri Federal Constituency until new, just and population-based ward maps are implemented.
Those obstructing justice, the Itsekiri elites must be held accountable.
International observers and civil rights groups must intervene now to prevent another 1997-style ethnic catastrophe.

Signed:

Chief Tiemopere Joshua
(President)

Chief Ebikeme T. Godstime
(Secretary)

Stakeholders of Warri Federal Constituency

CC:

President of Nigeria

INEC Chairman

National Security Adviser

National Assembly

United Nations Office in Nigeria

African Union

ECOWAS