EPZ land dispute tears apart two Delta towns

The Itsekiri Patriotic Alliance and the Gbaramatu Traditional Council of Chiefs are still on the war path over the land on which the Export Processing Zone at Ogidigben in Delta State is sited.
This is no thanks to the naming of the EPZ after Ogidigben, which has pitched the group against the chiefs.
The crisis that trailed the project failed to subside even after President Goodluck Jonathan had performed the ground-breaking ceremony.
The Itsekiri group has described the publication credited to the Council of Chiefs, which queried the naming of the EPZ after Ogidigben, as not only “selfish driven” but “fraught with lies, cheap blackmail and a calculated attempt to incite crisis in Warri.”
A statement co-signed by the Chairman of IPA, Erefoluwa Keka, and Secretary, Gbemi Ajagbe, said the publication credited to the Chiefs, on June 6, this year, signed by seven persons, including one one Chief S.A. Etoromi, was provocative.
While the group said it was unnecessary to refresh the minds of the Itsekiris and Ijaws about “the dark days of Warri crisis”, it wonderd why the Chiefs attempted to curry President Goodluck Jonathan in the publication “to fall for cheap ethnic sentiment.”
The group condemned the Chiefs for fanning the embers of discord and deceiving the general public by still claiming that the major parts of the field billed for the legacy EPZ project were part their Kingdom.
The group urged the Chiefs to desist henceforth from been mischievous, warning that no group or ethnic nationality has a monopoly of violence.
It maintained: “On no account will Itsekiri ethnic nationality allow the change of name of Ogidigben EPZ project under any guise.”
It continued: “The advertorial exposes the greed on the part of the Gbaramatu Chiefs after the ground-breaking ceremony of the Nigeria Maritime University and NIMASA Shipyard / Dockyard in Gbaramatu by President Goodluck Jonathan, was treated like an Ijaw republic affair without involving other neighbouring ethnic nationalities like Itsekiri.”
The Council of Chiefs had on June 6, in an open letter to the President, called for the re-naming of Ogidigben EPZ, claiming that the substantial part of the land belongs to Gbaramatu Kingdom.