Onyedi Gabriel, Port Harcourt
President of the Ijaw Youths Council Worldwide, Peter Igbifa, has threatened to sue the council’s Lagal Adviser, Obiri Ebilade, following an allegation that he collected N14million and $100,000 from the Niger Delta Development Commission and diverted the money.
Igbifa, who frowned seriously on the allegation, gave Obiri and an online medium, the Investigator Newspaper, seven days to retract the report and apologise to him and the IYC or meet his lawyers in court.
Igbifa in a statement said, “I would have glossed over the matter because of the obvious falsehood contained in the report but the fact that such allegation came from the Legal Adviser of IYC, Mr. Obiri Ebilade, who is a member of my council and whose opinion could be taken seriously by uninformed members of the public, made it expedient for me to take issues with him.
“Prior to my election and indeed after my overwhelming victory at the poll, I promised to run a transparent and all-inclusive administration with clear emphasis to sustain the struggles that laid the foundation to our noble IYC.
“I want to assure the Ijaw nation that I have not deviated from that promise. I am, however, shocked at the level of desperation by some persons led by Ebilade to tarnish my image and bring the highly respected office of the council’s President to public ridicule.”
Igbifa said the inconsistency in the allegation exposed Obiri as a hired and paid agent, who was on a failed sinister mission to hang on just anything to bring down his person and his office.
He said, “In one breadth, Obiri claimed that the said money was meant for the conduct of the Oporoza Convention, but in another breadth he said I collected the money after the convention and squandered it.
“I believe that Obiri is a lawyer and knows the implications of making wild unfounded allegations. I challenge him to go a step further to prove his allegation. The onus rests on the accuser to adduce required ingredients of proof to incontrovertibly justify his position.
“I have searched my memory in vain to remember when the said incident happened and when I collected such money from the NDDC on behalf of the council. Therefore, I call on Ebilade to remind me the date of the event he spoke about and give details of how it happened.
“Ebilade and the Investigator Newspaper are hereby given seven working days to withdraw their allegation and apologise to me and the IYC. I have informed my newly appointed Legal Adviser, Bar. Igbeta Ayebakuro and my lawyers to activate a legal process that will bring Ebilade and the newspaper to court to prove their allegations, in case they fail to publish the retractions and apologies.
“I urge Ijaw youths to disregard the needless distractions from Ebilade and his paymasters. The IYC under my administration is in safe hands and no amount of blackmail will deter us from implementing all our programmes and policies designed to reposition the council”.