
Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State has debunked allegations that he was planning to scuttle the Brass Fertilizer and Petrochemical project on the grounds that it was sited in a ‘core Ijaw area’. The accusation on social media has reignited issues concerning core Ijaw and non-core Ijaw that have divided the ethnic Ijaws in Bayelsa State, regarded as the most homogeneous Ijaw state in Nigeria. Apart from ethnic sentiments arising from core Ijaw and non-core Ijaw, politics has also largely divided the people since the All Progressives Congress (APC) emerged as the leading political party in the…