By Mark Lenu
The IYC Eastern Zone election has been postponed by one week, following issues arising from clans and delegates’ inequality. The election date was later rescheduled for Saturday 14 September.
Back home, on Kalabari soil, the chairmanship position was zoned to Kalabari Kingdom which sparked up various overzealous aspirants who indicated their interest in contesting the election and if allowed, it would erupt crisis in the region.
In order to forestall the crisis in sight, the entire IYC Kalabari Se-Ikpangi remembered our revered leader, the Edi-Abali of Kalabari Kingdom, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo Asari, and decided to resolve the choice of candidacy in the presence of Alhaji Asari.
Speaking with our correspondent, a former Chairman of IYC Kalabari Se-Ikpangi, Comrade Ibinabo Omoni Jack narrated how Alhaji Asari waded into the candidacy issue and got it resolved amicably.
In his words, Comrade Omoni Jack said: “It was unfortunate that the election did not hold on Saturday as earlier scheduled and has been postponed but be that as it may, Alabo Edi-Abali has tried so much in bringing peace to Kalabari Kingdom and the Eastern Zone at large.
“His intervention in this election has again given positive direction to IYC worldwide. The Eastern Zone chairmanship was zoned to Kalabari Kingdom and several persons showed interest.
“In the light of unity and oneness, the people of Kalabari then called for a meeting and asked our leader, the Edi-Abali to intervene. The aspirants were nominated and screened at the instance of our Edi-Abali and Comrade Prince Datolu Sukubo emerged as the preferred candidate by consensus.
“In his wisdom. our Edi-Abali used the following criteria to determine who our consensus candidate would be;
“(1) Academic potentiality
“(2) A non-cultist.
“(3) A competent and credible person who can stand and speak. and the world would listen.
“(4) Someone who can stand for the Ijaw nation at all times. Unlike the former IYC Kalabari clan chairman who was working for his masters, not the Ijaw nation he went ahead to use IYC flag to support the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike against our Ijaw brother, Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
“Our Edi-Abali who was the first deputy national president and second national president of IYC has always been fair from the onset by saying that only the Kalabaris and Okrikans should not dominate the Eastern Zone chairmanship because these two tribes have tremendous upper hands as far as the Eastern Zone is concerned.
“We noticed that some persons had created more clans for themselves to have more delegates than others for the election which led to the disagreements on Saturday before the election was postponed.
“We usually share our delegate activities among seven clans and we noticed that by virtue of having additional clans, some clans were having more delegates than others which is not fair in a delegate-driven election like this.
“Some persons further argued that we should use 20 clans which was not in our normal tradition as It has always been seven clans. So, the best decision to take was to postpone the election to enable us to settle the clan and delegate disputes first, then come back for the election.”
