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Local Government Creation Will Resolve Warri Crisis Says Governor Ibori

This Day (Lagos)
NEWS
August 29, 2003
Posted to the web August 29, 2003

By Jaiyeola Andrews
Asaba
Determined to find a lasting solution to the Warri crisis, the Delta State
Government may create new local government areas to diffuse communal tension
among the major ethnic groups. To this effect, Governor James Ibori yesterday
in Asaba sought the intervention of the State House of Assembly at resolving
the crisis in the area.
Ibori, who addressed the House on the Warri crises, said the assignment of the
House was urgent, adding that "given the urgency of the task, government
expects the outcome of your intervention without delay, so as to enable it
through legislative process design a framework for achieving enduring peace and
harmonious inter-ethnic relationship in the state."
He charged the legislators that as representatives of the people, that should
initiate an historic peace process, by assisting the warring ethnic groups
embrace the peace processes in order to find a lasting solution to the carnage.
The governor noted that the present arrangement of local government areas
lacked the necessary ingredients to balance ethnic unrest in Warri. He stressed
that there was an urgent need for the ethnic groups to meet and fashion out
indigenous administrative frameworks that would guarantee a fair, just and
equitable co-existence.
Besides commending President Olusegun Obasanjo's initiative in calling for
local government reforms, Ibori stressed that with the peculiar nature of the
Warri crisis, the state could not afford to wait for the outcome of the
envisaged reforms.
He further said that there was the need for immediate resolution of the ethnic
carnage that had engulfed Warri, adding that wisdom must be brought to play, as
the people were desirous for development and peace.
The governor lamented the shortcomings of the existing local council system,
which had not been flexible enough to foster the union of inclusiveness as
demanded by the people under a democratic dispensation.
He recalled that the existing local government councils came into force before
the present constitution, but observed that the manner of their creation has
not been responding to the lofty ideals of unity in diversity as enshrined in
the constitution.

   

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