Ijaw Youth Council (also indefinite as "Ijaw youths") is a civil rights organization in Nigeria, founded in 1998, which supports the interests of the Ijaw ethnic group of the Niger Delta.^[1] At the point of the establishment of the IYC, leadership of the organization spread across the Nigerian states where the Ijaw people resides. Hence, in the South-South Nigeria (also known as Niger-Delta), Pronto Douglass led the IYC while Pere Camfo was the leader of the IYC in Ondo State^[2] From 2001 to 2004, it was headed by Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, until Asari split from the movement to found the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force.^[3]

Mr Peter Igbifa is the current President of the organization.

The Egbesu Boys, a group of Ijaw youths, which started as both cultural and religious groups but turned out as a group of young folks, which rise to tackle injustice resulting from oil exploitation in the Niger Delta have been identified as the militant arm of the IYC.

External links

• The Kaima Declaration by Ijaw Youths of the Niger Delta: "Being communique issued at the end of the All-Ijaw Youths Conference which held in the town of Kaima this 11th day of December 1998"

References