THE incessant communal clashes between Aladja and Ogbe-Ijoh communities can only be resolved through conscientious political will, education, the revival of grassroots sports and environmental justice.
Comrade Sheriff Mulade gave the recipes weekend when he paid a courtesy visit to Ogbe-Ijoh community to unveil Peace and Unity House through which he hopes to entrench peace that’ll bring desired progress in the area.
Mulade, who’s a Delta State House of Assembly hopeful, stated that it was the time the challenges ranging from security and communal issues plaguing the area be laid to rest to engender progress.
The environmental activist and peace-builder, while unveiling the Peace and Unity House amid his supporters, said Warri South West LGA needed more peace and justice, saying all hands should be on deck to accomplish these.
“For quite sometimes, there’s been a lot of challenges ranging from security issues to communal problems as well as underdevelopment at Ogbe Ijoh and Warri South West.
“Our primary concern is to see how we can restore peace in Ogbe Ijoh, the local government and the entire Delta State.
“The importance of peace cannot be overemphasized and my aim is to bring peaceful coexistence along communities among all ethnic groups in the area.
“We want to ensure every entitlement is fairly shared to the communities and wards as well as pursue educational development for the children and youths to banish unrest.
“We’ll also put up programmes to discover talents through sports. We’ll organise tournaments such that our youths could grow up into national teams,” he enthused.
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This, he said, would help to arrest youth restiveness that has somewhat become a pastime in the area.
Mulade, who hopes to clinch the state House of Assembly ticket under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), vowed to restore the traditional farming occupation of the rural folks through remediation of the ecosystem that has been devastated by the oil spill and illegal oil bunkering.
“I want to resolve environmental injustice in the riverine communities. Our environment has been bastardized. Our ecosystem destroyed.
“The traditional fishing occupation of our rural folks has been destroyed. We want to make laws and also compel oil multinationals in our communities to obey the laws,” the founder of the Centre for Peace and Environmental Justice (CEPEJ) noted.
It will be recalled that Ogbe-Ijoh has been a hotbed of the communal clash with neighbouring Aladja, an Urhobo community in Udu LGA, over a piece of land which final settlement has reached an advanced stage by the state government.
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