Ethiope Committee Indicts Ede Dafinone, Accuses Senator Of Betraying Urhobo, Endorsing Anioma

The Ethiope State Creation Committee has issued a damning verdict on Senator Ede Dafinone, accusing the Delta Central lawmaker of abandoning the Urhobo quest for a new state and instead endorsing the creation of Anioma State.

In a 38-point statement signed by Chairman Chief Dr. Ominimini Christopher Obiuwevbi, Secretary Engr. Chief Anthony Ochuko Onyokoko, and Publicity Secretary Dr. Wilson Omene, the committee said it had waited with the patience of people who have learned not to expect too much from a man who has made disappointment his most consistent legislative output. “That season is over,” the committee declared. “The Urhobo people are owed the truth — not the version Senator Dafinone has been carefully constructing in the national press, but the real truth.”

The committee said Senator Dafinone, as the highest-ranking elected representative of the Urhobo people at the federal level, was the natural and constitutionally appropriate leader of the legislative effort. It stated that its chairman led a delegation including Dr. Wilson Omene to the senator’s Abuja office with a painstakingly prepared executive summary covering every constitutional requirement for state creation including land mass, population, economic viability and existing infrastructure. “We did not go empty-handed. We did his homework. We placed it all in his hands and said: here is the work, here is the mandate, now lead,” the committee said.

According to the statement, the senator did nothing with the documents. “He looked at everything we brought. And he did nothing. Not one bill. Not one motion. Not one formal inquiry to his colleagues on the Constitution Review Committee. Not one phone call made on our behalf to the presidency or to the Senate leadership. Not one naira invested in a cause that bears the name and the future of his own people. Senator Ede Dafinone produced zero legislative output for Ethiope State. Zero. That is not a performance gap. That is betrayal — cold, sustained, and documented.”

The committee’s most serious allegation is that while its members were carrying out additional consultations that Senator Dafinone himself had requested, he quietly signed in support of Anioma State, the neighbouring state creation bid championed by Delta North Senator Ned Nwoko. “He did this while our members were travelling, meeting, persuading, and sacrificing their own time and resources on a mission that was ultimately his responsibility. He did this while Urhobo patriots were knocking on doors across our land in his name,” the statement said.

When Dr. Wilson Omene confronted Senator Dafinone with evidence that was already circulating on social media, the committee alleged that the senator admitted it. The committee said his explanation was that if Anioma State was created, Urhobo would become the majority in the remaining political configuration and would therefore always produce the governor. The committee described the explanation as breathtakingly shallow and constitutionally flawed, noting that a sitting senator and member of the Senate Committee on Constitution Review should know that producing a governor requires the highest number of votes and at least one-quarter of the votes in at least two-thirds of all local government areas. “We have one question for Senator Dafinone, and we ask it in the name of every Urhobo man and woman who deserves an honest answer: what exactly did you receive, from whom, and when, in exchange for your endorsement of Anioma State? Because the explanation you gave does not hold up to ten minutes of constitutional scrutiny,” the committee stated.

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The committee also rejected the senator’s claim that he was instrumental in changing the name of the proposed state from Urhobo State to Ethiope State. It said the name came from internal deliberations and from advice brought by Ambassador Chief Dr. Omodoro Adeseye-Ogunlewe, Chair of the committee’s Diaspora Committee, based on her husband’s suggestion that an ethnic nationality name could attract resistance at the national level. “Senator Dafinone was not in that room. He did not propose the name. He did not suggest an alternative. He contributed nothing to that deliberation. He was briefed after the decision had been made. To claim credit for the intellectual and strategic work of a committee you refused to support is not statesmanship. It is something far less,” the committee said.

On legislative progress, the committee credited Hon. Benedict Etanabene of Uvwie, Okpe and Sapele for moving the Ethiope State bill in the House of Representatives to first reading, second reading and public hearing in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, describing it as the highest point any Urhobo state creation proposal has reached. It alleged that Senator Dafinone only appeared at the South-South Zonal Public Hearing and spoke only after being asked by the Chairman, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere. “We made quiet enquiries afterwards and what we found was simple: he came for a photograph. This is a senator who refused to sponsor the bill, refused to lead the legislative fight, and who in over three years produced not a single formal legislative action for Ethiope State. Yet that same senator showed up for the sole purpose of taking photographs,” the committee said.

Responding to Senator Dafinone’s description of the movement as a narrow APC partisan project, the committee listed Bishop Blessing Erifeta, Bishop Dr. Harriton Akpodiete and Most Reverend Dr. Isaac Obie as religious leaders with no political affiliation involved in the process. It cited its January 17, 2025 town hall in Ughelli attended by over one thousand Urhobos from every local government area and every political party, and noted support from Delta State House of Assembly members and local government chairmen from both APC and PDP. The committee said Senator Dafinone was invited to the Ughelli town hall but did not come, did not send a representative, and did not send a letter of solidarity.

On the role of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, the committee said it engaged him discreetly because a governor seen to openly champion the fragmentation of the state he was elected to govern exposes himself to enormous political and constitutional risk. It added with contempt that the same senator who signed publicly for Anioma State is now lecturing the committee about discretion.

In its verdict, the committee said Senator Dafinone does not have the courage this fight required, does not have the legislative discipline his time in the Senate demanded, does not have the constitutional knowledge his committee seat obligated him to develop, and does not appear to have the genuine love for the Urhobo Nation that this moment required. “He was handed the blueprint. He was given the mandate. He signed for Anioma. He attended our public hearing for a photograph. And then he wrote an article claiming to be the architect of a movement he betrayed,” the committee stated.

The committee said it remains committed to pursuing Ethiope State through peaceful and democratic means and called on every Urhobo son and daughter to hold every elected representative to the standard the Urhobo Nation deserves. It ended with a direct appeal: “If anything remains of the mandate the Urhobo people placed in your hands, use it. File the bill in the Senate. Move the motion. Make one meaningful contribution. Just once, for them. The creation of Ethiope State will happen with you or without you. But history will record exactly where you stood.”