Agitation by the Igala ethnic extraction in Kogi State for the creation of Okura State has remained a source of concern to stakeholders and some groups in the state.
A press statement issued to newsmen yesterday in Abuja by the national chairman and secretary general of Ukomu Igala Organisation, Dr Moses E. Adah and Dr Yakubu Ugwolawo said the failure of the National Conference to recommend the creation of the proposed Okura State by the Igala and Bassa people of the Kogi East Senatorial district is unfortunate.
It said the Igala nation considers this as an assault on their right to self determination and an attempt to consign them to backwardness in perpetuity.
“The Igala people weathered through rough socio-economic and political storms during the colonial and the military dictatorship regimes with little or nothing to show in terms of development. They therefore, decided to take their destiny in their hands by requesting to be created as a state of their own.
“The Igala/Bassa people of Kogi State deserve a state and no one should stop the Igala nation from being a unit of Nigeria’s federation. There are abundant human, material and natural resources which will be harnessed for the development of the proposed state. We do not therefore think that the nation wants the Igala people to take up arms to fight for their legitimate right before this great injustice is corrected,” it said.
