Ane-Igala Association rejects State Assembly law barring East person from chairing Kogi State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission

The Ane-Igala Socio-Cultural Development Association has described as provocative the Kogi State House of Assembly law, now an act barring an Igala person from appointment as Chairman of the newly created Kogi State Oil Producing Areas Commission.

The group rejects the law which has been gazetted by Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo, urging the governor to end marginalization of the people of Kogi East from occupying strategic position in government.

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In a statement by the National Coordinator, Chief Akwu Umar Goodman
National Coordinator and the Secretary General, Dr. Fred Attah, made available to CAPITAL POST in Lokoja on Wednesday, said, it was an ‘economic robbery’ to push aside people whose land produces oil that made Kogi an oil producing state.

The group faulted the spirit and letter of the Act which says, “to say that leadership of the Oil Commission should rotate only between non-host communities”, was nothing short of absurdity, and a threat to the unity of the State.

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The statement reads: “The Ane-Igala Socio-Cultural Development Association rises in total rejection of the reported gazette or legislation by the Kogi State House of Assembly that seeks to bar the Igala people of Kogi East Senatorial District from occupying the position of Chairman of the Kogi State Oil Producing Areas Commission.

“Let it be stated clearly that silence is no longer an option. What is happening is a calculated political robbery against the host communities of Kogi State’s oil resources.

“It is wicked, provocative, and unacceptable that the people on whose land oil is produced are constitutionally pushed aside from leading the institution meant to manage their God-given wealth.

“To say that leadership of the Oil Commission should rotate only between non-host communities while excluding the Igala is like saying no indigene of Mecca can be Chief Imam because Islam belongs to all Muslims.

“Such reasoning is absurd, insulting, and dangerous for unity and peaceful coexistence.

“At a time when the world promotes resource control, community participation, and inclusion, Kogi State appears to be moving backwards by enacting anti-owner policies.

“Laws must protect the people, not enslave them. Any law that sidelines host communities is a direct invitation to crisis.

“In Nigeria’s Niger Delta, oil-producing regions consistently influence the management of petroleum resources. Yet in Kogi State, political opportunists are scheming to constitutionally dispossess the Igala people of what nature and history have bestowed on them.”

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