• As Ijaw group alleges campaign of calumny against military
By Lukman Olabiyi, Paul Osuyi, Asaba
More than one month after the brutal killing of 17 officers and soldiers of the Nigerian Army in Okuama, Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori on Saturday visited the community for the first time.
His visit came on the heels of an alarm raised by a group, Concerned Ijaw Citizens (CIC), alleging a string of sponsored and unwarranted attacks and a well orchestrated campaign of calumny against the Nigeria military leadership over the Okoloba/Okuama crisis.
The group in a open letter to President Bola Tinubu jointly signed by its Coordinator, Mr Seigha Manager and the Publicity Secretary, Chief Andrew E. Elijah, said it had uncovered sponsored and unwarranted attacks and a well orchestrated campaign of calumny by a section of the media with a view to discrediting the Nigeria military on the Okoloba/Okuama crisis.
Recall that the governor was denied access to the community by security at the wake of the gruesome murder which occurred on March 14, 2024.
The governor who was accompanied by the Commander, 63 Brigade, Brig. Gen. Unachukwu Ugochukwu, and top government officials on the occasion, assured the Okuama community that they would safely return, reiterating that the innocent ones would not be made to suffer for what they know nothing about.
Oborevwori informed journalists that due process was followed in the whole incident.
“The people have been buried and the king that was detained has been released yesterday and today I am here to see what happened in Okuama community.
“The Okuama 17 is something that we didn’t expect to happen because it is against our bargain for peace and security which I promised Deltans that we are going to enhance.
“We have been enjoying peace and security since last year until the 14th of March when the four army officers and 13 soldiers were murdered.
“They were not just murdered, their bodies were mutilated and we have come here to see what happened.
“Let me again reiterate Mr President’s promise that no innocent person would be victimised and you can see that, from that time till now, there has been no harassment of citizens of this community.
“I have come to see how the innocent people of this community can be reintegrated back with the cooperation of the military.
“We know it is a big loss to them, but we have to follow due process. The Brigade Commander is with us and the newly posted Commander of 181 Battalion, Lt Col Dabo, is also here with us, and it is a great synergy,” he said.
He said his administration was doing a lot to effectively resolve the dispute, adding that citizens of Okuama would soon return home.
Continuing, Governor Oborevwori said: “Let me once again thank Mr President and Commander in Chief, Bola Tinubu, the Chief of Army Staff and the Chief of Defence Staff for their cooperation so far.
“They have been very supportive and they have kept to their promise that innocent people will not be victimised. I want to assure the people of Okuama that there is no point running away from your community.
“We are going to bring you back to your community. It’s only those that are involved that the military are looking for.”
It stated that the aim was to blackmail the Armed Forces with deliberate falsehood and unfounded stories in the media space as a ploy to demand the removal of the Service Chiefs.
While commending the level of professionalism of the military in handling the Okoloba/Okuama crisis, the group urged the military command, not to be blackmailed to abandon its professional duties.
Meanwhile the Ijaw group has said that the Okoloba people believed in peaceful means to end the conflict and agreed to submit themselves to the Military Board of Inquiry.
In its letter, it stated that the Okoloba people had been notifying the relevant security agencies, local and the state government on the reckless activities of the Okuama people including (but not limited) alleged unwarranted harassment of defenceless women and men with machetes, clubs, bows, arrows, guns in their farms and fishing lakes, rape, kidnap, arson, murder among others.
The letter read in part: “Permit us Your Excellency to bring to your gracious notice that we have uncovered a string of sponsored and unwarranted attacks and a well orchestrated campaign of calumny by a section of the media with a view to discrediting the Nigeria military on the Okoloba/Okuama crisis.”
It noted that “this negative media campaign made up of concocted stories and deliberately misleading headlines started surfacing immediately after the killing of the 17 military personnel in Okuama and continued unabated up till the setting up of the probe panel by the military high command to date.
“We are duty bound to alert the rest of the country and Mr President that the sole objective of the Okuama people rejecting the panel of inquiry is to hoodwink the rest of the country into joining their ungodly attempt to rubbish the efforts of the Armed Forces that lost officers and men in Okuama in the most barbaric manner, in order to distract their attention from another planned attack from Urhobo communities.
“The recovery of arms and ammunition from Olota community (Ewu-Urhobo community) few kilometres from Okoloba is a proof that the hostile attitude of Okuama to the military panel of inquiry was to divert the attention of military from their peace-keeping duties.”
The group condemned the unprovoked killing of the 17 officers and soldiers of the Nigerian Army in Okuama, and expressed deep condolences to the Chief of Defense Staff (COS), the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and the families of the fallen heroes, and prayed the Almighty God to grant them the fortitude to bear the loss.