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OPINION: Northern Nigeria’s Paedophilic Mass Weddings

Published

2 years ago

May 14, 2024

Editor

By Suyi Ayodele

“Could you ‘please, possibly, perhaps’, send me to Kano?” I told my editor last Wednesday.

“You will meet me there” was his response.

I laughed.

A moment later, a friend added his voice: “Why did the Kano government do such a thing under the table? They should have called for an expression of interest.”

We laughed again. I further suggested that the Kano State correspondent “should be penalised for concealing the info!” A friend extended the penalty: “Very well. His Bureau Chief too.”

The Bureau Chief came begging: “Oga mi sir. I am sorry sir. Help me appeal to them sir”

We all laughed.

In my place, they say when a matter goes beyond weeping, one can only laugh. That is exactly what we did that Wednesday morning.

Our laughter was over a news item by the Daily Trust newspaper that morning. The headline reads: “Hisbah allocates 50 mass wedding slots to kano journalists” According to the report, the Commander-General (see rank) of the Kano State Hisbah Board, Sheik Aminu Daurawa, announced that journalists practising in the state had been allotted 50 females out of the number of women that would be given out in mass marriage in the state. Sheik Daurawa, who said that the previous mass marriage during which 1,800 women were married off was a huge success, disclosed that the Hibah Board had decided to expand the scope by including professional bodies as beneficiaries of the mass wedding, and he was generous enough to allocate 50 slots, sorry, 50 women, to journalists in Kano State.

I read the story and I felt that the editor should post me to Kano that moment. Unfortunately, he too had his eyes on the 50 slots! My Editor was not alone, his General Editor too was calling for an “expression of interest” – who no like beta thing?

As I penned this, the possibility of going to Kano was still open as Sheik Daurawa had not disclosed the date for the second mass wedding, which the Islamic scholar said was conceived “to promote moral values in the society and reduce immorality among young men and women.” We shall return to Kano presently.

When it comes to matters of the other room, it does not rain in northern Nigeria, it pours. Something bigger than the Kano mass wedding is about to happen in another state in Northern Nigeria. On May 24, in the Year of the Lord, 2024, dignitaries from all walks of life will be gathering in Mariga Local Government Area of Niger State as the Speaker of the Niger State House of Assembly, Abdulmalik Sarkin-Daji, will be marrying off 100 girls in a mass wedding. Now, wait for it! These 100 girls are not willing spinsters of marriageable ages. No!

They are children who became orphans because bandits struck their villages and killed their parents!

The children became orphans not by their choices but by the failure of the government to protect them and their parents from the killer machines known as bandits. And to ‘ameliorate’ their suffering, the “Rt. Hon. Speaker” Sarkin-Daji decided that the best way to do so is to marry them off.

These wives-to-be are the luckiest of the 170 females under the same circumstance.

And if you think that Mr. Niger State Speaker is alone in this shenanigan, you are damned wrong! The governor of the state, Mohammed Umar Bago, and the Emir of Kontagora, Alhaji Mohammed Barau, are to serve as guardians to the female orphans during the mass marriage ceremony! Neither the governor nor the Emir has denied this.

What about the ages of the 100-would-be wives? While the ‘father’ of the mass brides, Sarkin-Daji, did not disclose their ages, a source, who should know, volunteered that the oldest among the ‘intending brides’ should be around 16 years! “This is just the conservative age. I know that a girl of 13 to 14 years in that locality is already a multiple mother”, my source volunteered! The speaker, who had already listed the proposed mass wedding of the orphans as part of his “constituency empowerment project aimed at alleviating the suffering of the impoverished”, waxed more ‘generous’ by saying that he would be paying the dowries for the bridegrooms, in addition to procuring “all necessary materials for the mass marriage ceremony.” And of course, his soulmate in the generous act, Sheik Aminu Daurawa of the Kano State Hisbah Board would be on ground to witness the ‘grand’ ceremony.

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The mass weddings in Niger and Kano States would be conducted without any recourse to the psychological make-ups of the would-be-brides. I don’t also know if the would-be-husbands would also be allowed to ‘inspect’, feel and touch the girls, the way a buyer feels goats on their tethers before buying them. Don’t worry; we have sunk deeper than this as a nation! Phew!

On this page last week, we discussed the issue of the age of admission to Nigerian universities by the Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, who proposed 18 years. His argument was that any child who goes to the university before the age of 18 is “too young.” The professor of Law further argued that those “too young” undergraduates “are not mature enough” to cope with the rigours of life in the tertiary institutions, and attributed most of the problems in our higher institutions to the ‘immature’ undergraduates. This is the irony of Nigeria. Professor Mamman is from the north. This is how a friend, Rev (Dr) Bola Adeyemi, responded to the referenced column last week: “In his part of the country, girls of 13 years of age ‘are mature’ for marriage; boys of under 18 years are mature enough for ‘almajarism’ and terrorism, but not for education.” I could not fault the Reverend gentleman. How on earth do we explain our situation to the sane nations of this world without sounding not all there? How do we justify the proposed mass wedding in Niger State without looking like people from the Stone Age to listeners from other countries?

Chapter Two of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (As Amended), deals with the “Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy.” Section 14 (2) (b) of the same chapter states specifically thus: “the security and welfare of the people SHALL be the PRIMARY PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT (emphasis mine)” This is exactly the responsibility the government has failed to discharge in Niger State, and in most states of the north, and the entire country in general. On a daily basis, we read, hear or witness, the killings of Nigerians in their homes, on their farms, on the highways and schools’ dormitories, by felons the state was expected to checkmate. About two days ago, bandits stormed a university in Kogi State and whisked away about 15 students.

Everywhere you turn in Nigeria, it is like the song of the iconoclast, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, “sorrow, tears and blood”. Yet we have various levels of government. We have people we voted to power to do the job for us. We have the National Security Adviser (NSA), whose only interest is to collect cybersecurity tax while bandits kill at the rate of 10 for two Kobo! We have Generals in all our Armed Forces; we have an Inspector General of Police and other top hierarchies who superintend the rank and file. Bandits struck in Niger State, as in other places. Parents were killed. Children were orphaned as a result of such crass irresponsibility on the part of the government. The only response we got is a proposed mass wedding for 100 orphans, whose parents were victims of a remiss government, to only God-knows-who suitors! Who are we as a people? What are the core values of our being as a nation?

The education of the girl-child has been a troublesome issue in Nigeria. A February 26, 2024, article on the issue, titled: “Gender desks on frontline of girls’ education in Nigeria”, and sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO’s International Institute for Education Planning, states: “In Nigeria, where 50% of girls are not attending school at the basic education level, major planning efforts are underway to promote gender equality in and through education.” The paper posits that between 2024 and 2027, the roadmap for the Education Sector “aims to bring 15 million out-of-school children back to school in the next four years.” Again, in an earlier piece by Ada Dike of Daily Times newspaper, published on October 15, 2023, on the topic; “Problems facing girl-child education in Nigeria”, the author said: “poverty, peer pressure, early marriage, unwanted pregnancy, being their family’s burden bearers and lack of parental care are parts of the challenges hindering girl child education in Nigeria”. All these identified factors are more prevalent in the north. The most vicious of them all is the issue of “early marriage”, the type Speaker Sarkin-Daji of Niger State and Sheik Daurawa of Kano Hisbah Board, are promoting with crass impunity.

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), as of October 23, 2023, gave the figure of out-of-school-girls in Nigeria to be 7.6 million, with the caveat: “mostly from the northern region.” Of the 20.2 million figures of out-of-school children in the country, the international body said that over 60 percent of the total is from the North. The figure, as given by Christian Munduate, UNICEF Nigeria Country Representative, in Kano, during the International Day of the Girl Child 2023, which had the theme: “Our Time is Now – Our Rights, Our Future”, said: “Nigeria, alarmingly, accounts for 15% of out-of-school children worldwide. Yet, only a mere 9% of the poorest girls have the chance to attend secondary school. This is not just a statistic, it’s a wake-up call…” She added that Kano State ranked second in the number of out-of-school girls in Nigeria, with Kebbi State leading with 67.7 percent.

The elite of the north, nay all Nigerians, should be deeply worried that the data on literacy level published, recently, by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), showed that of the 10 uneducated states in Nigeria – Kebbi, Yobe, Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, and Niger States, all make the list! Little wonder then the states in the north have a large number of girls to be married off at mass wedding ceremonies. That is our collective shame as a nation. This is why Nigeria keeps crawling, and drooling, 64 years after independence. No matter the pace the other regions of the country intend to take, our stunted brothers up north would keep slowing us down!

The girl-child is an endangered specie in the north. We all witnessed how a former two-term governor and senator of Zamfara State, Ahmad Sani Yerima, was changing neonates as wives the way a nursing mother changes diapers. We only watched and we did nothing! The man sat in the hallowed chamber of our highest law-making body to join in making laws “for the good governance of the country” while he wantonly destroyed our future with his incurable paedophilic propensity. The best we did was to hide under the blackmail of culture and religion. We never interrogated the mentality of a man above 60 years pulling his trousers at the sight of a 13-year-old girl! And we have millions of Yerimas all over the country, prowling and devouring our young girls. Nobody says a younger girl should not marry her grandfather if that is where she finds ‘love’. Our argument here is that it is morally wrong, mentally inconceivable and legally inappropriate for any man, no matter his age, status and political exposure, to snatch an underage girl in the name of marriage. Nigeria practises universal adult suffrage. That gives one the feeling that the age of consent cannot be lower than the voting age of 18 years.

Even, on a moral scale, picking an 18-year-old for marriage while her mates are still in school is eternally despicable. But our leaders do it with impunity! The deposed Emir of kano State and former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (SLS), secretly wedded Sa’adatu Barkindo Mustapha, the daughter of Lamido Adamawa, in 2016, at the age of 18, before making the affair public in 2020, when Sa’adatu turned 22. The former Emir of Kano was 55 years old then! But that was not all with the deposed traditional ruler. In the same 2016, SLS was fingered in the abduction of Ese Oruru, a 14-year-old girl from her Yenagoa, Bayelsa State home, by one Yinusa, aka Yellow. The girl was taken to the Emir of Kano’s palace, where she was forced to ‘marry’ Yinusa. Attempts to retrieve the little Oruru from SLS’s palace were met with stiff resistance until Nigerians rose in an outcry. One of those who fought for Oruru’s release, Fineman Peters, said then: “This case defies sanity… This is the most blatant state-sponsored case of paedophile (sic) that I have ever seen…”

The barbaric case of paedophilia which Google defines as “sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object. Specifically: a psychiatric disorder in which an adult has sexual fantasies about or engages in sexual acts with a prepubescent child”, is not a native of the north. It has mild and largely negligible expressions in virtually all states of the Federation. The difference between the north and other parts of the country is in its prevalence up north and the tendency to wear cultural and religious cloaks on such an act of depravity. From Delta to Edo, Osun to Ekiti; Akwa Ibom to Rivers and Abia to Enugu States, cases of cradle snatchers abound. We have senators whose pastime is seeking young girls to devour.

One of them from one of the Niger Delta States, an unrepentant paramour, who would not go for outright under-age girls, stocks his harem with girls that could easily pass for his granddaughters! We all condoned him and rewarded him with an election to a higher legislative chamber. The shame of it is on all of us! Now, the chicken is coming home to roost. On Sunday, May 12, 2024, we all read the account of the 28-year-old father of little Faith, a five-year-old girl, who posted on his Instagram page, the naked photos of the toddler. Faith’s father, who had since been arrested in his Auchi base, by the men of the Edo State Police Command, was said to have taken the poor little girl to a hotel, took off her clothes and took her naked photos which he uploaded on his Instagram handle! Thank God for the immediate response of the police on this matter.

When one begins to read cases like these, especially from our brothers up north, one cannot but feel sad. Ironically, the region we all pity is like the proverbial troubled soul on whose behalf we all fast and pray, but who keeps on having three full meals everyday (eni aa tori e gbawe to nje osan). How do we address this issue? That informed the banters at the beginning of this piece. The elders of my place say: oro to ba koja ekun, erin laa fi rin – when a matter goes beyond weeping, one can only laugh). And like we say in the Niger Delta region: make persin laugh before persin kpai! Let me ask my editor again: Any chance of going to Kano?

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Otuaro: Baseless Allegations, Disregard Them, Group Urges Public

Published

21 hours ago

May 17, 2026

Editor

The Ijaw People’s Development Initiative, IPDI has reacted to a statement circulating online regarding the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), describing it as baseless.

The statement under the disguise ‘Niger Delta Stakeholders Forum and Niger Delta Ethnic Nationalities,’ had demanded accountability regarding the management of the Programme and its administrator, Dr Dennis Otuaro.

Reacting to the statement, National President, IPDI, Comrade Austin Ozobo, said: “We consider it necessary to respond point by point to correct misconceptions, reject unsubstantiated claims, and keep the record straight in the interest of PAP beneficiaries, stakeholders, and the general public.

“It is worthy of note that the PAP operates under strict federal financial regulations and is subject to routine audits by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, the Ministry of Finance, and other oversight bodies.

“All disbursements, including stipends, vocational training, education support, and third-party contracts, are processed through the Treasury Single Account, TSA, with verifiable records”, the statement read.

According to the IPDI, the Programme welcomes lawful criticism and scrutiny at any time. However, linking such a call to specific individuals without evidence amounts to trial by the media and undermines due process.

“Dr Dennis Otuaro, administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme has maintained a good record of financial management, hence no formal petition with verifiable evidence has been submitted to any anti-graft agency till date”.

“It may interest you to know that the N65,000 monthly stipend is fixed by the Appropriation Act and can only be reviewed through a budgetary process approved by the National Assembly and the Presidency.

‘The PAP management has consistently conveyed beneficiaries’ concerns on cost of living to relevant authorities”.

“Again, claims that allocations to the Programme have risen significantly while stipends remain unchanged misrepresents the budget structure.

“Note, increased allocations in recent years have been tied to expanded reintegration programs, education sponsorships, skills acquisition, and infrastructure support for training centers, not solely to stipend payments”.

The group reiterated that the allegation that the Amnesty Programme Office “kidnaps and detains delegates” is false, reckless, and defamatory, adding that the PAP has no paramilitary or law enforcement mandate, nor does it operate detention facilities and that any incident involving law enforcement is outside the control and purview of the Programme.

“We challenge the authors to provide verifiable details of time, place, and persons involved so the matter can be addressed through appropriate legal channels,” the group said

On Claims of Selective Empowerment and 500% Payment Increases, the group maintained that payments to contractors, ex-agitator leaders, and service providers were governed by existing contracts and agreements predating the current administration.

“No individual or camp has received unilateral increases without contractual basis or due process. Allegations of 500% increases are unsubstantiated and designed to stoke division among beneficiaries,” it added.

“The current administration has maintained a policy of transparency in engagement with leaders and has expanded inclusion by verifying and capturing previously omitted beneficiaries where due“, IPDI added.

The group further said, “The PAP remains a neutral, peace-building institution established under the 2009 Amnesty Declaration. Its mandate is to coordinate disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. The Office does not engage in political victimization, intimidation, or exclusion of stakeholders. Engagement with ex-agitator leaders and community structures is conducted based on their role in maintaining peace and facilitating reintegration, not political alignment”.

“The PAP under Chief Denis Otuaro’s leadership remains committed to transparency, fairness, and the original mandate of the Amnesty Programme. Constructive criticism is welcome and has informed policy adjustments in the past. However, campaigns of calumny, unverified allegations, and attempts to drag the Programme into commercial or political disputes do not serve the interest of peace in the Niger Delta”, IPDI said.

“We urge all stakeholders to channel grievances through the established engagement channels of the Programme and to avoid statements that threaten the fragile stability we have worked to sustain”.

Consequently, the IPDI urges members of the public to disregard what its described as “flimsy and unsubstantiated allegations, misconception, and missives by faceless groups above“.

News

[OPINION] Olukoyede’s EFCC: Taming The ‘Fantastically-Corrupt’

Published

22 hours ago

May 17, 2026

Editor

Since its creation 23 years ago, by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, as president of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous and influential country, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), had apparently not gotten a head, who had piloted the affairs of the commission, like Mr. Olanipekun Olukoyede, its Executive Chairman, a chief-operations-officer of the Commission.

It could be said that Olukoyede, the Czar thief catcher and arrestor of economic saboteurs, has given the EFCC’s enemies such a tough time as he has taking the anti-graft fight to the doorsteps of the high-profile individuals across the country. These range from former state governors, serving and former ministers, retired and serving civil servants, businessmen, clergies, traditional rulers, cyber-influencer, entertainers, professionals and numerous others.

Olukoyede brings years of experience in law, fraud management, and business intelligence to bear on the position. Before him, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu was EFCC’s inaugural chair; succeeded by the first and only female, Mrs. Farida Waziri; Ibrahim Lamorde, Ibrahim Magu, and Abdul Rasheed Bawa.

The anti-graft agency has its hands full with massive financial fraud and money laundering cases. In the clause of “physicians, look at thyself”, EFCC in its resolve is known to have been flushing out officers within the body, who run foul to the law.

In the past, before Olukoyede’s appointment, it was widely believed that it was only the “fries and not the big fishes”, who the Commission could summon the courage to prosecute; and that most culprits were also left from the hook, because of compromise by some corrupt officers of the Commission, and feeble litigation processes.

Mr. Godwin Emefiele, former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), happened to have opened to Olukoyede’s a deluge of “big-men and women”, who have been arrested, investigated and cooling their feet in detention or those bailed, that are facing severe court trials. There is the biggest 19-count charge at the Ikeja Special Offences Court, involving an alleged $4.5 billion fraud.
Immediate-paste governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, faces two massive, but separate legal battles totalling over N190 billion on fraud allegation. EFCC secured from the Court of Appeal, forfeiture of 14 properties and huge money linked to him.

Abubakar Malami (former Attorney-General of the Federation), with his son, Abdulaziz and his wife, is currently charged on a-16-count of money laundering. The court has stayed interim forfeiture of 57 properties valued at over N213 billion.

EFCC had also secured the arrest of Sadiya Umar-Farouq, a female former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, and a former Permanent Secretary, through a Federal High Court, on a 21-point alleged fraud and corruption charge, involving $1.3 million and N746.6m and others amounting to 37.1 billion.

Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, also female and former Minister of Women Affairs, was removed from office by President Bola Tinubu, over alleged misappropriation and diversion of N138.4 million, and had been under EFCC questioning.

A recent discovery, which startled Nigerians and the world, the Commission (EFCC) had reportedly arrested a serving Director-General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, Dr. Mustapha Abdullahi, over alleged money laundering involving about ₦500 billion.

Somewhat, this had deflated the claim that those arrested and persecuted are political opponents and not serving officers of the Tinubu’s government.

EFCC is a “Nigerian law enforcement and anti-graft agency that investigates financial crimes, such as advance fee fraud (419 Fraud) and money laundering. It was also set up to fight against corruption and to protect the country from economic saboteurs”.

The Commission, whilst responding to pressures from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), that named Nigeria as one of 23 countries not cooperating in the international community’s efforts to fight money laundering, had revved in performance, in a bid to roll back the blights.

And so, it is a strenuous goal for EFCC, as entrenched in the ‘EFCC Establishment Act 2004’, which gives it specialist jurisdiction against severe financial and commercial crime – covering multiple high and lower levels.

Born on 14 October 1969, Olukoyede, a civil servant, has had a clear break from past, where past executive chairmen of the Commission had left the Commission, where all serving officers were drafted from the Nigerian Police Force (NPF). However, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is widely commended for Olukoyede’s appointment to the position, with the Senate also eulogized for screening him.

Whilst briefing the Press in Abuja, on his two-year activities in office, on October 23, 2025, the Commission’s boss certainly made unprecedented progress in the fight against economic and financial crimes. He spoke through the Director of Public Affairs of the Commission, Wilson Uwujaren, as he listed the recovery of N566 billion, alongside other currencies and assets, among the achievements of the Commission.

He further revealed that the Commission received over 19,000 petitions, conducted 29,240 investigations, filed 10,525 cases in court, and secured 7,503 convictions.

Olukoyede asserted that the Commission recovered ₦566,319,820,343.40, $411,566,192.32, £71,306.25, €182,877.10, and other foreign currencies from proceeds of financial and economic crimes. Added to this was the recovery of 1,502 non-monetary assets, comprising 402 properties in 2023, 975 in 2024, and 125 so far in 2025.

“Among these recovered assets are two notable landmarks: the final forfeiture of 753 units of duplexes in Lokogoma, Abuja, and the forfeiture of Nok University, now the Federal University of Applied Sciences, Kachia, Kaduna State,” he said.

He listed several high-profile cases prosecuted within the period, including those involving former governors Willie Obiano, Abdulfatah Ahmed, Darius Ishaku, Theodore Orji, and Yahaya Bello. Others are former ministers Olu Agunloye, Mamman Saleh, Hadi Sirika, Charles Ugwu, and former Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele.

EFCC was also said to have reentered and invigorated some longstanding fraud cases, such as ones linking Fred Ajudua, former People Democratic Party, PDP National Chairman Haliru Bello Mohammed, ex-National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki, and former Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF boss, Ngozi Olojeme.

The EFCC said it arrested 792 suspects involved in asset and cryptocurrency frauds in Lagos, among who were 192 foreigners who were prosecuted and deported.

A Task Force on Naira Abuse and Dollarisation of the Economy was established by EFCC, which accordingly, had notable impacts in sanitizing money actions countrywide. “The campaign against naira abuse, racketeering, and speculative currency trading has helped reduce pressure on the naira and complemented the Central Bank’s efforts in stabilizing the economy,” he said.

Olukoyede also spoke on the Commission’s strengthened partnerships with foreign law enforcement agencies, including the Korean Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Spanish Police, and German Police.

He also mention benefitting synergy with the FBI, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), INTERPOL, and Japan’s JICA, in subsequent joint investigations and the repatriation of stolen assets to victims from Spain, Canada, and the United States.

Strengthening EFFC’s mandate at the regional level, and in Africa, Olukoyede and the Commission are said to be up and doing. For instance, a thing that had never happened to EFFC, he had been twice elected as President of the Network of National Anti-Corruption Institutions in West Africa (NACIWA), which led to the founding of a permanent secretariat in Abuja.

A strong media presence is needed to successfully inform the public of the ideals of EFCC and its update activities. And so, ‘EFCC Radio 97.3FM’, Nigeria’s first anti-corruption radio station, was established Olukoyede. EFCC should count itself very lucky for having in its fold, tested, diligent and veteran journalists who are ostensibly seasoned in the ideals and watchdog principles of the Commission.

News

APC Primaries: Johnny Rallies Support For Senator Thomas’ Re-election Bid

Published

22 hours ago

May 17, 2026

Editor

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress in Delta State, Chief Michael Johnny, has called on Delta South Senatorial District’s party faithful to come out in large tomorrow and vote for Senator Joel-Onowakpo Thomas (JOT) in the party senatorial primary election.

Johnny, widely regarded as a leader par excellence within the APC, described the primary election as a critical moment that will determine the political stability, unity, and future direction of Delta South.

According to him, Delta South needs a detribalized leader with the capacity to unite people beyond ethnic sentiments and political divisions.

He warned against leaders whose style of politics promotes ethnic division and unnecessary tension within the region.

Chief Johnny stated that Senator Thomas has continued to distinguish himself as a leader who carries everyone along, irrespective of tribe, political background, or local government affiliation.

He noted that JOT’s leadership style has strengthened cooperation, peace, fairness, and political inclusion across Delta South.

Speaking further, Chief Johnny declared that the Ijaw people have resolved to stand firmly behind Thomas because fairness, justice, and political balance must prevail in Delta South.

“As Ijaw people, we have decided to support Senator Joel because this is the turn of the Isoko nation, and Ijaw stands for truth. That is our position,” he stated.

He also appreciated what he described as “genuine Itsekiri sons and daughters” who believe in fairness, equity, and peaceful coexistence, adding that Delta South can only move forward when the various ethnic nationalities work together in unity and mutual respect.

Chief Johnny maintained that the senatorial district must not be dragged backward by divisive politics or ethnic interests capable of weakening the collective strength of the region.

He stressed that all APC members in Delta South must remain united in their support for Senator Joel-Onowakpo Thomas.

“Delta South is bigger than personal interests. This election is about unity, stability, fairness, and the future of our people. Senator JOT represents continuity, experience, and inclusive leadership for all ethnic groups in Delta South,” Chief Johnny added.