“We Will Not Accept Political Slavery In Warri, Publish The Final Report Now Or Meet Resistance”__

By Uche Alvin

OPEN LETTER TO INEC, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA AND THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY
DATE: 8/1/2026

The Final Report or Final Resistance, We Will Not Accept Political Slavery in Warri

INTRODUCTION:

WHEN A STATE’S FAILURE BECOMES A PEOPLE’S PAIN

We write with broken hearts and exhausted patience. We write not because we enjoy confrontation but because silence has been forced upon us for too long. What is happening in Warri Federal Constituency is a democratic betrayal unfolding in slow motion. The refusal of the Independent National Electoral Commission to publish the final ward delineation report has transformed hope into anguish and restraint into rage.

We chose the path of law over chaos. We trusted institutions over instinct. We went to court instead of the streets. We believed that justice, would ultimately prevail. Today, that belief is being tested to its breaking point.
INEC has seen the truth. INEC has walked our communities. INEC has verified the data. INEC has complied with the Supreme Court to the extent of commencing delineation and yet, having reached the moment of truth, it now hesitates. Not because of law. Not because of evidence. But because of pressure, intimidation and the loud theatrics of a minority that has mastered media noise over demographic reality.

A PEOPLE STANDING AT THE BRINK OF POLITICAL ERASURE

The Ijaw people of Warri Federal Constituency now stand on the edge of political extinction in our ancestral homeland. This is not rhetoric. It is lived reality. When wards that reflect population truth are withheld, representation is stolen. When representation is stolen, identity is erased. And when identity is erased, a people are reduced to spectators in the land their ancestors built.
How does a constitutionally empowered electoral body become hostage to a fabricated narrative?
How does a federal commission ignore the pain of a people who chose courts over conflict, only to be rewarded with silence?
Enough is enough.

THIS IS NOT JUST DELINEATION, THIS IS SURVIVAL

This struggle is not merely about lines on a map or numbers on a register. It is about existence. It is about dignity. It is about whether the Ijaw people will continue to have a voice in the land of their birth or be permanently consigned to political invisibility.
INEC must understand this clearly: your delay is not neutral. It is not harmless. It is not procedural. Every day this report is withheld, injustice deepens. And injustice, when prolonged, radicalizes even the most patient of peoples.

JUSTICE DELAYED IS PEACE ENDANGERED

We are compelled to speak plainly. Continued silence does not preserve peace, it endangers it. It does not stabilize Warri, it destabilizes it. When people begin to believe that lawful channels no longer deliver justice, faith in institutions collapses. No society survives the collapse of institutional trust.
You are not calming the situation. You are intensifying it.
You are not preventing tension. You are incubating it.

DEMOGRAPHIC TRUTH CANNOT BE SILENCED

The Ijaw people are the clear majority in Warri in. This is not propaganda. It is not sentiment. It is data, verified through your own fieldwork. You visited our towns. You counted our polling units. You saw our schools, our communities, our spread, our numbers.
You also saw the truth elsewhere. And having seen it, history will ask: why did your hands freeze at the moment of justice?
Truth does not disappear because it is inconvenient. It only grows louder.

THE LAW HAS SPOKEN, IMPLEMENT IT

The Supreme Court has spoken. The directive to resume delineation was obeyed in part but obedience that stops halfway is still disobedience. Law without implementation is deceit.
INEC is not above the Constitution. It is a creation of it. Failure to implement a clear judicial directive is not delay, it is contempt. Contempt of court. Contempt of democracy. Contempt of a people who believed in the system.

WITHDRAWAL OF MORAL CONSENT

Let it be clearly understood: a people cannot be expected to cooperate with a process that actively oppresses them. Consent is the foundation of democracy. When justice is persistently denied, consent erodes.
We do not desire confrontation. We desire resolution. But we cannot be complicit in our own marginalization.

OUR PATIENCE IS NOT WEAKNESS

Do not mistake restraint for fear.
Do not confuse peace with surrender.
We are a people with history, with memory, with resilience. We have chosen law over disorder, dialogue over destruction. But patience has limits, and dignity has red lines.

FINAL NOTICE TO CONSCIENCE AND HISTORY

INEC stands at a crossroads. You can choose justice and be remembered as the institution that upheld democracy under pressure. Or you can choose delay and be remembered as the body whose silence reopened old wounds in Warri.
Announce the final ward delineation report now.
Let justice speak louder than intimidation.
Let truth prevail over manipulation.
History is watching.
The people are watching.
And time is no longer on your side.

Signed:

Chief, Tiemopere Joshua
President

Chief, Ebikeke T. Goodstime
Secretary

Ijaw Stakeholders of Warri Federal Constituency

CC:

National Assembly

National Security Adviser

Delta State Governor

DSS

Governors’ Forum

Civil Society Organizations

Amnesty International