- Says IYC okays corporal punishment for erring members
The Labour Party Governorship flag bearer in the Saturday, November 11 election, Udengs Eradiri, says corporal punishment forms part of disciplinary measures for erring members of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide.
Eradiri told Arise TV hosts of ‘The Morning Show’, Rufai Oseni and Dr Reuben Abati that “We dey beat” which is the local parlance for corporal punishment.
The Gubernatorial candidate, who was reacting to allegations that he assaulted someone on a live radio programme during his tenure as the IYC President, said that discipline is part of the constitutional responsibility of the Council.
Eradiri further justified the action saying at that point, there were a lot of erring members and something drastic needed to be done to whip everyone into line.
Acknowledging that the IYC does not tolerate deviants, the Labour Party candidate refused the interviewer’s position that he took the laws into his hands by beating up the alleged culprit
He explained that he did not go into the radio station himself but the IYC’s triggered machinery for discipline did what was necessary at that time.
Eradiri, who insisted that his interviewer should use the right words, said; “They were not beaten up. They were disciplined. Use the right words. We had to extract that loyalty to the Ijaw Nation from them.”
For him; “The IYC has a way of disciplining erring members, and when they went ahead to further step out of line, even when there was a court case going on, I had to institute the disciplinary machinery of the IYC, and that disciplinary machinery saw to the end of that nonsense”.
On whether corporal punishment is approved under the conventional laws of IYC, Eradiri retorted in pidgin English; “We dey beat. The Ijaw Youths beat”.
