File. Urhobo leaders

The dastardly murder of seventeen officers and men of the Nigerian Army on the 14^th of March 2024 was a condemnable act which riled all people of goodwill and conscience, the Urhobo Renaissance Society (URS) has said. The peace-loving Urhobo people, according to the group, also condemned the barbaric act in the harshest of words.

As contained in a statement signed by John Uwa, URS Secretary, so far, the military has pointed accusing fingers at the people of Okuama as the culprits since the mutilated bodies of the soldiers were found floating on the Forcados River which runs by Okuama. “We dare say that this is an allegation which has not been proven by any investigative panel. While the Urhobo people commiserate with the families of the slain soldiers and offer their condolences to the Federal Government of Nigeria for which the military serves as a symbol of power, we cannot continue to be silent in the face of the deliberate act to wipe Okuama off the face of the earth as embarked upon by the Nigerian Army.”

Uwa went further: “The Urhobo people, after expressing their shock and condoling with the families of the murdered soldiers, the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian state, have again and again insisted on the innocence of the Okuama people of less than eight hundred living on a poor and isolated land. We have insisted that the kind of fire power that will eliminate that number of soldiers was lacking among the agrarian Okuama people. We have also insisted that the Urhobo people’s unalloyed loyalty to the Federal Government has made them to show an uncommon respect bordering on veneration to the military and never in the history of the Urhobo people have they hurt a soldier or taken up arms against the Nigerian state.

What is happening at Okuama is a tragic instance of scapegoating intended to destroy an entire community by a military that abandoned the rules of engagement with citizens as enshrined in global best practices. The military has turned its arsenal against the citizens it should be protecting. Okuama has become victim of state violence.

The premise that the people of Okuama are victims of state malevolence is now glaring to all with the conflicting utterances coming from the peak of the military high command. The Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, has offered four different narratives on the Okuama incident. His first thread was that the soldiers were killed by youths of Okuama. The next line was that the military knows the killers of the soldiers and that they were closing in on them and he went on to mention one Amagbein from Igbomotoru in Bayelsa State. In another narrative he ascribed the killings to oil bunkering. His latest storyline is that Okuama people hired mercenaries to kill the soldiers. In one of his media outings, General Musa said Lt. Col. A. H. Ali the slain commander alone could have leveled all of Okuama if he had been armed. The same General Musa forgot that he had told the world that the killers of the soldiers made away with their arms which the military is now looking for in Okuama. Are these conflicting stories from just one man about one incident not enough pointers that the military should look elsewhere for the killers of the soldiers?

As we write the military has leveled Okuama and authoritative media reports indicate that a church and a school are the only two buildings standing and reminding the world about a place that once was. The number of Okuama lives wasted by Nigerian soldiers since the 14^th March incident is unspecified, but they are many. The entire Urhobo nation is mourning the annihilation of Okuama. The few surviving people now live in forests cohabiting with wild animals and reptiles. The military has blocked all access to Okuama and those trapped in the forest are dying of starvation. Besides Okuama, the military has also attacked nearby Urhobo communities in search of suspected innocent people.

What became more disturbing was the declaration of eight citizens including a royal father and a professor as wanted persons. And the world wondered how legitimate is it for the military to declare citizens who are not its personnel wanted. The royal father who is the King of Ewu Kingdom of which Okuama is a constituent community has been held incommunicado by the military. This is a desecration of tradition and a gross violation of the Nigerian constitution.

Unfortunately, the Chief of Defence Staff is holding onto the presidential directive, for the military to fish out the killers, to commit genocide in Okuama; even without cognizance of its discretionary power in a civilian environment. And with the evidence adduced to the Okuama incident in the media, we expect the initial hasty presidential response to have been rescinded; so as to prevent the Nigeria military, the largest force in Africa, from its further destruction of an infinitesimal settlement like Okuama. We use the medium to call for the immediate release of the King of Ewu kingdom in line with his fundamental human right.

The military has set up a panel of inquiry which is an attempt at covering up. The military cannot be a fair judge in its own case. Whatever that panel is doing should be confined to military and not public records. What the Federal Government should do is to set up an independent commission of inquiry to unravel what actually happened. Only then can we get to the bottom of the matter and get justice. Therefore, let us state very clearly that the Urhobo Nation will have no trust, or take part, in a panel of inquiry in which the Nigerian Army is both the judge, the prosecutor, the adjudicator and the executioner.

The Okuama incident should not be seen an isolated misfortune and ascribed to a land dispute between two communities. In the fullness of time, its real instigation by resource theft in which the military is actively involved will be revealed. The military needs to give reorientation to its men in order for them to focus on real soldierly duties and being truly faithful to the nation. The military in the Niger Delta has a subterranean allegiance to resource theft in collusion with oil thieves. What an independent investigation can also do is to get mobile network providers to evaluate the conversations in the phones of the slain soldiers to know what went on in the days leading to their death.

Those who reduced Okuama to rubbles and murdered her people should remember the story of Odi and Zaki Biam. The General who ordered the bombardment of Odi was still alive when another General leveled his home town of Zaki Biam.

For now, we call on the Federal Government to call the military to order and let Okuama be rebuilt. Okuama lives matter.”