From Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
Former President Goodluck Jonathan, Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri and a former military governor of old Rivers State and King of Twon Brass , King Alfred Papapreye Diette Spiff and other leaders have celebrated one of the founding fathers of the state, late King Geoffery Filinti Aganaba.
This is even as Diri has called for the creation of two additional homogeneous Ijaw states insisting that Ijaw ethnic nationality deserved more than one state.
Jonathan who joined other eminent Ijaw sons to celebrate the 25th remembrance anniversary of the late king Aganaba in Yenagoa at the weekend appealed for to Ijaw people to rally round one another describing the late Aganaba as a man with an exemplary lifestyle.
The former President represented by a former deputy governor of Bayelsa, Rear Admiral John Jonah (retd) said Ijaw people should do things that would make future generations celebrate them.
“Succeeding generations will come and judge us with standards far higher than what we have now”.
“What Aganaba has done, you learn these things so that the children will know that these things are possible. Most of our children didn’t grow from home. They stayed in Lagos, they stayed in Abuja; so they don’t actually know.
“But it is by studying what people of this calibre of his time have done; the self sacrifices they have made to get us to this point that we can actually know that yes, we have a duty to this state.
“All of us have a duty to this state to ensure that this state get to a point that succeeding generations will come and judge us with standards far higher than what we have now. Things are changing, it is a computer age; they will scrutinize us. But if they do that, can you stand out? He, Aganaba, has actually passed that test”.
Diri, on his part, recalled that the founding fathers had requested for three states before the late military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, created Bayelsa.
Describing the Ijaw as the fourth largest ethnic nationality in the country, Diri lauded the late Aganaba for his contributions in the creation of Bayelsa but said it was not the end of the agitation for more Ijaw states.
“The creation of Bayelsa State is not the end of it; it is indeed the beginning of it. We still have other two states that we proposed that have not been created and we must make that clear to the Nigerian government that the Ijaws are still craving for the creation of two additional homogenous Ijaw states.
“We are indisputably the fourth largest ethnic nationality in Nigeria but yet we have been balkanised into four, five states and in each of these states, the Ijaws have become minorities and I am sure that the new executive of the Ijaw National Congress (INC) will continue to take that as one of their battles.”