The Ijaw Youths Council (IYC), the umbrella body of Ijaw youths in the country on Wednesday, April 1, 2015 availed that the body has accepted the results of the Saturday, March 28, 2015 presidential elections, urging all Ijaw youths across the country to avoid violence, destruction and protest following the result of the election which produced General Muhammadu Buhari as president-elect.
General Buhari had defeated incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan – an Ijaw man – in the keenly-contested presidential election.
Making the position known was the IYC President, Udengs Eradiri, who while congratulating General Buhari, besought Ijaw youths to support the former military Head of State the same way President Jonathan enjoyed the support of youths across the country.
Eradiri further added that the IYC would accept General Buhari’s leadership.
He said: “I want to use this opportunity to congratulate Gen. Buhari who has emerged the winner of the presidential election.
“And so as IYC, when we had our own as President, the Igbo, the Yoruba, the Hausa were loyal to him. We will be loyal to the President-elect, Gen. Buhari, who from May 29, 2015 would become the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“We will accept it (the results of the election). We had our own knife and yam; we were not able to cut it the way we wanted. We have no other person to blame. It is in this part of the country that people ask for money to go and vote. However, the northerners were paying for their own transportation to go and exercise their rights and to go and pick their PVCs.
“Our people were expecting that they would be paid to collect PVCs and the results reflected so. We have no other choice; we are the architect of our own problem. So, we should be able to live with it.
“If you go and protest, you are on your own. If you go and destroy anything, you are on your own. I, as the leader of youths in this region, have reached out to other ethnic nationalities to canvass support. Maybe, we started late. Maybe the attention was not given that should have started with the political class.
“History has already recorded it. So, the best we can do is to key into his (Buhari’s) administration, just as the Yoruba and Hausa key into the administration. It is time for us to also key into the administration. So, I called on our people to steer clear of all those political manipulations.”
