The leadership of the Ijaw National Congress (INC) on Wednesday dismissed reports of infighting in the National Executive Council (NEC) of the organisation.
This is contained in a statement issued by Prof. Benjamin Okaba, and Chief Ezonebi Oyakemeaghegha, President and Publicity Sec, of the INC.
The officials said that the clarification became necessary in view of insinuation in some quarters to that effect.
They noted that the insinuation came about due to two different statements issued by them on Monday, in respect of President Bola Tinubu’s broadcast to the nation on the #Endbadgovernanceinnigeria protest.
“Our attention has been drawn to insinuations of purported infighting in the National Executive Council of the INC.
“The promoters of the ill-fated seed of discord referenced two statements issued on Monday tittle: ‘Tinubu’s failure to address protesters demand worrisome’ by Oyakemeagbegha, INC National Publicity Secretary, and ‘INC hails Tinubu for addressing Nigerians amidst Protest’ issued by Okaba, INC President.
“The point to be noted in these two statements are that while the INC President focused on the Intent of the Presidential Address, the Publicity Secretary spoke on the content of the same speech.
“It is imperative to state here that the two speeches were never contradictory or conflicting but rather complimentary.
“It was indeed the president of the INC who directed the secretary to make his statement as a follow up to his.
“Those attempting to drive a wedge in the workings of INC merely perused the headlines of the two statements without doing any intellectual content analysis of the Intent of the statements,” they said.
The INC noted that Oyakemeagbegha’s statement was not only in tandem with that of Okaba, but was authorised by him, after both offices agreed on the direction of the organisation’s responses to media interrogations on President Tinubu’s speech and other related matters.
“We jointly call on all well meaning ljaw people to disregard the stories making the rounds that there are irreconcilable disagreements between the president, Publicly Secretary and other members of NEC
“As human beings from different backgrounds, it is only natural to hold different views and even disagreeing in no disagreeable manner.
“Those of us that are abreast with the theory of dialectical materialism know very well that conflict which is not only universal and ubiquitous when properly managed, is a sinquanon for progress in every human society.
“We plead with ljaw people to emulate some patriotic Ijaw sons and daughters who will rather proffer solutions to issues, than cause more danger through very cheap blackmail,” they added. (NAN)
