Onyedi Gabriel, Port Harcourt
Ijaw Youths Council, Central Zone, has written the Independent National Electoral Commission requesting bye-elections to fill the vacant central and western senatorial seats belonging to Bayelsa State in the National Assembly.
Chairman of the council, Kennedy Olorogun, in a letter addressed to the chairman of the commission, said INEC should urgently fix the date for the election because the people of the two senatorial districts were being deprived of proper representation at the Senate.
Olorogun, in the letter he distributed in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, explained that the central and western senatorial seats became vacant following the emergency of their former occupants, Douye Diri and Lawrence Ewrujakpor as the Governor and the Deputy Governor of the state in a judgement delivered by the Supreme Court.
The letter read, “In effect, it is about six months now since the seats occupied by the two became vacant, thereby leaving the people of Bayelsa West and Central without any representation at the Senate.
“Our worry and that of our people is predicated on the premise that the Bayelsa West and Central senatorial districts have been deprived of representation and benefits that would have gone to these areas and people based on the absence of any representation.”
He said it was sad that the amended Appropriation Act was deliberated upon by the Senate, passed and assented to by the President without any input from the vacant senatorial districts.
Olorogun blamed INEC for the deprivations suffered by the senatorial districts, citing the commission’s inability to fill the vacancies created by the exit of the governor and his deputy.
“We, hereby, on behalf of our people in Bayelsa West and Central senatorial districts call on you as a matter of urgency to fix and conduct the bye-elections to fill the vacancies in the two senatorial districts of Bayelsa State as the youths and people of the areas are becoming restive with the unpleasant development,” he said.