By Enaibo Asiayei

Governor of Bayelsa State, Honourable Henry Seriake Dickson, has called the attention of the country to the unfair balkanisation of Ijaw clans and communities into different states using rivers as factors for boundary demarcation.

The governor made the comment while playing the host to the President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki, who paid him a condolence visit at his country home of Toru Orua, on the death of his mother, Mrs. Goldcoast Dickson.

He stressed that the Nigeria State had bakalised communities with the same cultures and traditions into separate states because of their location on different sides of the rivers without looking into their stories.

The Governor explained that the balkanization of the communities in the region and its adverse effects was among the reasons for the ongoing agitation for restructuring in the country.

He said, “The Nigerian nation balkanized our people along rivers. They Balkanized us into states. We have land on the other side of the River Forcados.

“We share cultural affinity with my mother’s people in Delta State  but the country says they are in another state. Those are some of the reasons we are fighting for the restructuring of the country.”

Dickson commended Saraki for taking on the odds in defence of democratic governance in the country.

The governor commended the Senate President for the visit adding that the encouraging gesture was appreciated not only by his family but also the state and indeed the Ijaw Nation.

He used the opportunity of the visit to inform his guests of the decision of the Dickson family to establish a cancer centre to promote awareness about the disease in honour of the memory of his late mother.

Saraki was accompanied in the visit by a former national Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, Kawu Baraje; Former Governor of Kogi State, Capt. Idris Wada; former Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Mohammed Wakil; the Senator representing Bayelsa East, Senator Ben Murray Bruce; his counterpart from Bayelsa West, Senator Foster Ogola and others.

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