[VIDEO] Akpabio, Staff Flee As Ijaw Youths Invade Minister’s Office In Abuja, Invoke “Egbesu Deity”

Hundreds of Ijaw youths on Wednesday invaded the office of the Minister of Niger Delta Affair, Senator Godswill Akpabio in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

BIGPEN reports that the minister may have apparently fled the office before the surge of youths arrived and made their way to the eleventh floor edifice of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affair.

In a video that was stream live on social media by the protesting youths, some staff of the ministry were seen fleeing the edifice as the youths make their way to the eleventh floor where Akpabio’s office is.

BIGPEN gathered that the youths are protesting alleged hijack of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affair as well as recent appointment of a sole administrator for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

The protesters youths drawn from Ijaw Youths Congress (IYC), Abuja chapter, invoked the spirit of the Ijaw god, the Egbesu on Akpabio as the protest lasted.

Chanting war songs, one of the leaders of the protesters said; “We are here in the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs to tell Godswill Akpabio that he did not put his blood for the Ijaw nation.

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“We the Ijaw people of the Niger Delta put our blood for the ministry to come into being.

“He (Akpabio) cannot undermine the interests of the Ijaw nation, who are the largest ethnic group in the Niger Delta. It is not acceptable and will not accept it.

“That’s why we have come here to tell him (Akpabio) to resign. Today is the last day, he should leave this office for us.”

The protesters later took over the entire the eleventh floor of the building where they invoke “Egbesu deity” against anyone standing against the wheel of progress in the Niger Delta and the reconstitution of the substantive board for the oil commission.

BIGPEN recalls angry Ijaw youths had on Monday, December 21, 2020, blocked the East-West Road to protest the appointment of Effiong Okon-Akwa as Sole Administrator of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

The protest came barely 12 days after President Muhammadu Buhari named Okon-Akwa, who was the acting Executive Director, Finance, and Administration in NDDC, as the commission’s interim administrator.

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Protesting the appointment recommended by Akpabio, youths had stormed the ever busy Mbiama-Yenagoa junction of the federal highway blocking both sides of the road.

Comrade Ebilade Ekerefe, who led the protests, said: “Niger Delta is not your personal estate; you cannot pocket a region. We say no to the appointment of a sole administrator. Sole administrator is alien to NDDC act.”