2011;Itsekiri women tackles imposition of candidate

LAGOS—THE Warri Women Consultative Assembly, WWCA, has urged all aspiring political office holders in the Itsekiri nation to make themselves available to the electorate for assessment, saying that it would help in eliminating the problem of imposition of candidates. The group also called on the aspirants to come with their respective programmes to a town hall meeting, which is scheduled to hold on Saturday,  September  18, 2010 in Warri.
Disclosing this, yesterday, in Lagos,  WWCA Facilitator,  Chief Rita  Lori-Igbebor, during a visit to Vanguard Corporate Headquarters, regretted that the Itsekiri nation had not been fortunate to be governed by its best brains in the past.

CHIEF RITA LORI-OGBEBOR

According to her, “We are ready to queue behind any Itsekiri son or daughter who will get us out of this doldrum. We will give our support to any of our child with vision, who is ready to serve. Even if the person has no money, we will support that person, because we have suffered deprivation because of imposition. We only need people who are intellectually sound and patriotic.
“We know it is not going to be easy because of people who want it to be business as usual but we will not be afraid. We will fight. We are not condemning anybody, what we want is for the people to come and talk to us about what they will do for us. We are not talking of political parties, we are talking about individuals.”
Lori-Ogbebor further said that elections in Warri Kingdom  will be issues driven unlike when the candidates were imposed from the top.
She said, “The town hall meeting will be an issue driven thing and not party driven. The political parties must start now to cooperate with the people, because they can’t stay in Abuja and impose people on us. If we know the people and their programmes, we can vote for them. We can vote for people of different political parties with good background and vision.
“We are sensitising the people on the need to vote good people, because we had suffered in the past. This time around, it is not only women that will be involved, the programme involves all Itsekiri sons and daughters. We are readdy for change for the benefit of our people,” she said.
In addition, the WWCA facilitator said, “In the last 12 years, the people representing Itsekiri nation were products of imposition. As such, we never had the benefit of fielding our best candidates who will represent us. And this has been a big disadvantage to us. This time around, we intend to field our first 11.
“Today, the world is a global village where you have great thinkers such as  doctors, engineers, professors and other great men of intellect. And they abound in Itsekiri nation.  That is why we are calling on such people to avail themselves for the service of our dear nation,” she added.
According to her, “Since the deaths of Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh and the Rewane Brothers, aspirants have been imposed on us. They don’t campaign nether do they know where they are representing. They are imposed upon us and they owe their allegiance to their God fathers. The consequences are what have brought Itsekiri to the state in which we have found ourselves. They go there to serve their pockets, their children and their wives.
This situation can no more be tolerated. We own our lands on which they seek to represent. A nation without a vision perishes.
It is therefore necessary that all aspirants meet Itsekiris on one-to-one, face-to-face, to introduce themselves and their agenda to the Itsekiri people.”