Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
Bayelsa State governor, Henry Seriake Dickson, has condemned in very strong terms, the recent unprovoked attack and killing of seven security personnel in Nembe Creek and Foropa community, all in Southern Ijaw Local Government Areas of the State.
According to him, such unwarranted attacks on the nation’s security personnel were putting the State and the region in bad light. And the killings, he said may provoke a re-enactment of the reprisal attacks in Odi.
As part of the steps to check the activities of the youths and improve the security situation in the State, he said community leaders, elders and other stakeholders would be summoned to a meeting at a date to be announced later.
Dickson in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Daniel Iworiso-Markson, personally expressed regret over the killings.
He therefore called on the perpetrators and their collaborators to stop it with immediate effect.
“Terrorism does not favour peace, neither can democracy express itself through violence”, Dickson emphasised.
The governor’s condemnation came on the heels of President Muhammadu Buhari’s order on the military to go on a manhunt for the perpetrators and clamp down all security threats in the Niger Delta region.
Dickson stated that the killings were also putting the innocent ones in the state and the Niger Delta region in danger.
While warning that the government of Bayelsa State does not want a replay of the Odi massacre in 1999, during the administration of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, where only the innocent people suffered the brunt of the military invasion, the governor called on community leaders and other stakeholders to check the activities of youths in their domains.
Dickson, however, said that the government is already working in concert with the security agents to bring the culprits to book and forestall any future occurrences.
View Comments (2)
Let the story be told loud and clear that you will not commit crime against the Nigerian Nation without consequence. The people that had had declared war against Nigeria should be prepared to face the consequence. A situation whereby some armed thugs killed the soldiers and police who are merely protecting their fatherland in an official capacity must have a grave consequence against the perpetuators. The people of Bayelsa who is just having 8 local government and a population of less than a million cannot continue to hold Nigeria and Nigerians into ransome. Since the militant with whatever name they use had challenged the whole nation to war, they should face the consequence.
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Like every other nigerian I strongly condemn the killing of our service men! But the attitude of the federal government Is putting nigeria at a greater risk!!! Please put your self in the shoes of those oil communities! Gold, oil and other mineral resources have been found in other parts of the country but the federal government is not claiming the ownership! they left it for the benefit of those communities where the mineral resources have been found! So why should the Niger deltan's case be different? We have been stealing this people dry! The nigeria you see today is built from the expense of these communities! before you start talking please visit those area and see things for your self! they have been subjected to the worse conditions that you can ever think of, yet we are beaten the drums of war for what rightly don't belong to us, and for your information it's not every time you will win a war through violence! This is not bokoharam most of these guys are graduates! We must dialogue with them otherwise I don't see how you can protect pipelines , by the way what they are asking is not even 2%of what we are making from them so why the wickedness!!!