(Abuja)
Members and leaders of De Club 10 Nigeria, have advised the Ohinoyi of Ebiraland, Dr Ado Ibrahim to consider setting up of a central committee to urgently compile all the historical and artifact documents and facts, for onward proper judicial action on and against the Federal High Court ceding Ajaokuta to Igala Kingdom.
The club, mainly of Ebira extraction, gave the advice in its six-point communique signed by Alhaji Saidu Yusuf,President,the end of its emergency stakeholders meeting in Abuja.
The club said:” Your Royal Majesty may move fast to obtain copies of the judgment from the Federal High Court, Lokoja for the purpose of seeking a “stay of execution” as the immediate measure before proceeding to institute a fresh case in the same matter.
In the struggle to get justice done in our favour, your Royal Majesty may refer to some background historical documents, hereby attached, one of which is a 77-page comprehensive letter by your late predecessor, His Royal Highness, Alhaji Mohammed Sani Omolori to the then Head of State, late General Sani Abacha, in 1995.
On page 31 of the said letter, it was stated thus: “indeed, Ajaokuta, Lokoja, Ganaja etc were all in Ebira Division in Kabba Province ever before Igala Division was absolved into Kabba Province…..
Ajaokuta has been inserted by the petitioner’s hand. No Ajaokuta would have featured on the map as it had not come into existence as a town or village.
Attached here with is the correct map of the area covered by the Treaty as of the 1840 period…and a later map drawn in 1854 by the British Expedition team led by William Balfour Baiki (Appendices 5 and
….Ajaokuta is part of the ancient Ebira Opete. Ajaokuta did not become a settlement until the early part of this (20th) Century).”
It must be stressed, from the legal and democratic point of view that Federal High Court has no jurisdiction over land matter in any given State in Nigeria, and such point should form the nucleus of the fresh legal battle being put together.
Your Royal Majesty may stress the point to members of your Traditional Council that less emphasis should be paid to unnecessary hateful comments or action that may be counter productive, and which could lead to a tribal war with our neighbours, realizing that the current state governor is our son, and must have been taking measures to tackle the situation.
Much as the judgment is a nullity and dead on arrival, Your Royal Majesty may appeal to all concerned to eschew violence, as all legal means will be explored to set aside the jankara/kangaroo judgment.”
Club 10 expressed sadness “over the embarrassing judgment of a Federal High Court, which purportedly excised a large portion of your Kingdom, and other kingdoms around Kogi State to Igala Kingdom.”
The leadership and membership of the club said that being loyal subjects of the Ohinoyi,they also felt aggrieved by the judgement, but that the feeling should not be taken in the spirit of anger.
Duaglobalnews reports that Club 10 is one of the formidable clubs with prominent citizens of Ebiraland cutting across various strata of the society.
