DEME KOLOMO: Bayelsa Chief Accuses Monarch’s Son of Mortgaging Community’s Future

 A member representing Egbemo-Angalabiri Community in the Tarakiri Cluster Development Board, Chief Deme Kolomo has reiterated the need for a joint general meeting of Communities in the Egbemo-Angalabiri domain consisting of Agbidiama, Clough Creek, Tunu and Opukushi in Egbemo-Angalabiri Town in Ekeremo Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.

The purpose of this meeting according to Chief Kolomo is to give account of their stewardship in the board and to report back to the community about the activities of the Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) as it concerns the entire people of the domain in the past one year and three months.
According to him all attempts to convene this all-important meeting that has been long overdue have been unjustly frustrated by the Chairman of the Board, Dr Jude Ebibokefie, without any cogent explanation.
“This meeting can no longer be delayed. It can no longer be put off; because it is an important meeting that concerns our wellbeing, development and corporate existence of our dear Egbemo-Angalabiri community. I have told everyone who cared to listen that I have discovered gross misconduct in the management of our commonwealth in Egbemo-Angalabiri domain by Dr Jude [Ebibokefie]. He has done all he would to make sure this meeting does not hold. He has used the Nigerian People, Directorate of State Services (DSS) to molest me in an attempt to cow me into dropping my call for a meeting where the Board we both represent Egbemo-Angalabiri in, which he chairs, does not present an account of our stewardship to the community we are supposed to be serving. So, I am using this medium to tell Dr Jude and his co-travelers that Egbemo-Angalabiri must meet and the meeting must hold in the community in the interest of our people. The people sent us to do a job, which we have been doing for over one year. And I have discovered that he has messed up the system.” He said
Stating further, Chief Kolomo who accused the Board Chairman of gross misconduct in the management of the affair the Domain noted that the meeting can no longer be postponed as issues affecting the development; happiness and corporate existence of the Communities have been threatened by Dr Ebibokefie’s antics.
“I am using this opportunity to tell the Nigerian Police and other security agencies that the bone of contention here has nothing to do with anybody in the Nigerian Police. I am not going after Dr Jude; he is the one coming after me. As I speak with you, the Police have been frequenting my home and harassing my pregnant wife and innocent children all in an attempt to incarcerate and cage me into kowtowing to the wishes of Dr Jude, which is to stop me from speaking the truth concerning how he has mortgaged the future of our community to serve his greed.”

While dismissing his alleged suspension by the Community’s Council of Chiefs, Chief Kolomo called on the Security agencies to desist from hunting him on Ebibokefie’s directives, noting that his refusal to honour their invitation is aimed at escaping Dr Ebibokefie’s attempts on his life.
The rest of the statement reads:
“I also want to use this medium to inform the security agencies that I have not committed any crime and I do not intend to do so anytime in the future. Dr Jude wowed and boasted that given that I have rejected all his pleas and attempts to bribe me into allowing him have his way, he would use the same funds I have refused to take from him to pay the Police, JTF, DSS and other security forces as well as everyone he would get to come after me. According to him, I will not sleep in my home. As of today, I am not sleeping in my house. So he would consider that a victory. My refusal to honour your invite is not to slight you but a precautionary measure to save my life. Dr Jude has plans to abduct me immediately I leave your station, at which time you won’t be responsible for my safety. Thus it would be foolish of me to consciously walk into that trap. I have no other reason to refuse your invite. I have no criminal record. I have never had any altercation with anyone in my life.”

“Dr Jude’s continues stay has Chairman of the Tarakiri Cluster Development Board will only lead to the retrogression of our community and all the other communities in the domain. For us to move forward, I have said let us convene a meeting of our people where I shall tell them what has been going on and if they are not satisfied with my explanation, I shall surrender to the will of the community; and not the current situation where Jude sent his younger brother to beat me up at a meeting in Yenagoa that his brother was not entitled to be in attendance.
The following day I was in a hospital receiving treatment for the injuries I incurred as a result of his brother’s attack against me, and I was informed that he has paid all the Chiefs of the Community to meet in Yenagoa to announce my suspension. I had foreknowledge of their plans, so I informed them that I was at the Hospital, therefore I cannot attend their meeting. Still they went ahead to act the script given to them by Dr Jude, thereby announcing my suspension despite receiving a formal Letter from me explaining why I won’t be at the meeting. I laugh at the purported suspension because I know it would not hold. As for the Chiefs, I do not have any issue with them. But if they believe that they have issues with me then we shall meet at the appropriate quarter. Suffice to say that there is no law or norm upon which they have premised their said suspension. Thus it is a hollow declaration that stands on nothing and therefore null and void. And I am happy that my Family whom I represent both as a Chief in the Council of Chiefs and member of the Cluster Board has stated unequivocally that they are solidly behind me.

Egbemo-Angalabiri is in trouble and Dr Jude is the one man putting the entire community in this needless trouble. Our community must move forward. And the only way that can happen is for me to tell them what has been going on in the Board, because they do not know. I cannot be part of this negative history. I cannot ruin my hard earned reputation that is build on solid serve above self to my Community in the past as Public Relations Officer (PRO) and Youth President, by staying mute while a board I am a part of is mismanaged at the detriment of our people. If I do not speak up now, at the end of our tenure, the Community would say, and rightly so, that I was part of the rut. This is what I am avoiding.”