From Ben Dunno, Warri
More reactions have continued to trail the killings of sixteen soldiers including four senior officers, at Okuama community in Ughelli South Council area of Delta State, last Thursday, the latest coming from the Senator representing Delta South Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Senator Joel-Onowakpo Thomas, who described the act as “callous and inhumane”.
Reacting in a statement made available to newsmen in Warri yesterday, Senator Joel-Onowakpo, who is the Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Defence, extends his condolences to the military and families of the slain soldiers
While calling for a thorough investigation into the remote causes of the crisis that led to the unwarranted killing of innocent soldiers, he emphasized on the need for the security agencies to go after the masterminds of the heinous crime.
Senator Joel-Onowakpo who also sympathized with the families of those who may have lost their loved ones as a result of the crisis, sued for immediate intervention of both the state and federal governments to avoid further escalation of the crisis.
The lawmaker stressed the need for the military to tactically deploy intelligence in the pursuit of the masterminds to avoid killing of innocent children and women of Okuama community who may not know those behind the dastardly act.
He however, advised the people of Okuama community to join forces with the military to fish out the killers of the 16 gallant soldiers.
Also in his reaction, a Member of the House of Representatives, representing Bomadi/Patani Federal Constituency, Hon. Nicolas Mutu, has described the act as barbaric and demonic.
Mutu, Chairman of the Gas Committee in the House and also Chairman of the Southern Nigeria Carcus in the House of Representatives, who made his position on the tragic incident known in a statement issued in Warri yesterday, lamented the senseless and most gruesome act carried out by the irate Urhobo youths.
He challenged all relevant security agencies to work round the clocks to fish out the killers and bring them to justice, warning that none of the criminals involved in the dastardly act must escape justice in order to serve as deterrent to those who may be planning to indulge in such heinous crime in the future.
He condoled the families of the fallen soldiers, the Nigerian Army as well as the Armed Forces on the tragic development. He prayed God to grant the repose of the souls of the gallant soldiers, who were gruesomely murdered while performing patriotic national assignments.
The lawmaker, however, frowned at distortion of facts of the incident in a section of the media which linked the fate of the soldiers to Ijaw militias in Okoloba, an Ijaw community in Bomadi Local Government Area of Delta State.
“This is far from truth of the incident. The Ijaw is not in anyway linked or connected to this unjustifiable barbaric and inhuman and condemnable act.
“The facts of the matter are with all appropriate security agencies and they are in fact in public domain. The indigenes of Okuama are responsible for these senseless killings.
“Two contigents of troops of Nigerian Army who were deployed separately on peace keeping mission in Okuama, particularly to investigate the killing of an Okoloba boy, were ambushed and wilfully murdered in cold-blood in Okuama.”
“I condemn the reports linking the Ijaw with this crime and call on the authors of such falsehood to retract them and apologise to the Ijaw nation, forthwith”, he stated.
Also reacting in a statement made available up newsmen in Warri, the leadership of the Community Development Committees of Niger Delta Oil and Gas Producing Areas (CDC), led by Comrade Joseph Ambakederimo, condemned the incident in strong terms and demanded the arrest and prosecution of those involved in the dastardly act.
“We cannot allow this ugly incident to continue to happen in our communities. The region should not be made to become a hot bed of insecurity, we have enjoyed related peace and we enjoin all and sundry to key in to continue to provide the atmosphere of peace and tranquil togetherness in our communities.
“We have pride the Niger Delta region as the most peaceful of the country and we urge it remains so.
“Peace keepers can not become targets when trying to maintain peace and provide security to lives and properties. The culprits must be fished out and made to pay the highest price.
“Certainly this is the act of criminal elements taking refuge in these communities therefore the leadership in these communities must be held to account untill the actors are found.
“We appeal to President Bola Tinubu and the military high command to restrain themselves from any form of reprisals attack on the communities because doing so would only compound the already dire situation and it will only be the innocent ones that will suffer from such reprisal attacks.
“No one kills it’s Military personnel and go scott free without consequences. This incensant attack and killing of our security forces must stop.
“We shouldn’t forget so soon that it was a similar incident that happened in Odi Community that led to the attack of the community by the military then as ordered by former President Olusegun Obasanjo then, when Twelve police officers were gruesomely killed.
“The Odi community has not recovered to its full growth since that incident which should be a lesson learned the hard way,” he stated.