Blessing Okorite, Port Harcourt
It is no longer news that Ogoni people, an ethnic group in Rivers State, have for some months been faced with challenge of killings perpetrated by some miscreants, who are suspected to be cultists. The offensive part of the problem is that the perpetrators of the incessant killings invade communities in the area and go freely without trace, yet security agencies are deployed to enhance security of lives and properties in the area.
The Ogoniland, which includes Eleme, Gokana, Tai and Khana local government areas, have over the years suffered environmental degradation, following pollution as a result of oil spill from the facilities of multinationals, operating in the area. This incident has put the people into years of suffering, as some persons have allegedly seen the situation as an advantage to defraud the people of their natural heritage, leaving them in total darknes,s including hunger, sickness and untimely death that result from the polluted environment.
While the people are yet to recover from the hazard caused by continuous oil spill in the already polluted area, some cultist gangs, who have taken over communities of Ogoniland and killing innocent people on daily basis, surfaced. Between June and August, Ogoni people have lost so many lives to these hoodlums in cult supremacy battles to occupy the land with alleged directives from their yet to be known leaders.
Recently, the Governor Nyesom Wike-led Rivers State government disclosed that a popular militant leader in the area, who has been on the state government’s wanted list had been arrested by joint security operatives. The alleged arrest of the militant, Boborisky, by the military went viral but the news of the arrest was short lived after authority of the 6 Division Nigerian Army denied making any such arrest, even asking the governor to disclose the troops that made the arrest.
This controversy between the government and the military on the arrest of the weird militant increased the killings in the area, as the cultists, who may be Boborisky’s boy, who are probably unhappy with the widespread celebration by residents and indigenes of Ogoniland when his arrest was announced.
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These boys invade the land, sometimes very early in the morning or during late hours of the night, go straight to their targets, perpetrate their evil deeds and disappear before they could be traced. The people can no longer condone the incessant killings in the area, as houses, palaces and even shrines are reportedly destroyed by the miscreants. The youths of the area are crying that they no longer have elders in the communities, alleging that the development is sustained because the suspects allegedly have backup by politicians and some personalities from the area and the state. They planned a state protest to attract the government attention to ending the menace.
President of Ogoni Youth Federation, Yamaabana Legborsi, had led a planned “Save Our Soul” protest from Isaac Boro Park to the Government House in Port Harcourt, to express their pains to the Governor but the process was truncated by the Police Operatives and State Security Services, with over 30 vans ready to attack anybody, who tried to embark on the protest.
Prior to the protest day, the state’s Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Nnamdi Omoni, released a warning statement, which was made available to the media. In the statement the police command warned that the protest would not hold, alleging that some miscreants had hijacked the process to cause unrest in the state capital, Port Harcourt, and state at large.
The statement had read: “The attention of the Rivers State Police Command has been drawn to the Threats and counter Threats making the rounds by some youth bodies in Ogoni, especially the threat by the Ogoni Youth Federation (OYF) Worldwide on the planned protest to the Rivers State Government House scheduled to hold tomorrow Thursday 29th August, 2019 at about 7am.
“The Command is not unaware of the fact that citizens have the right to protest, however such rights are not absolute as they could be derogated from when it is perceived that the protest will undermine the peace and security of the State.
“In this particular case, Intelligence at our disposal revealed that the said protest is ill-conceived, and most worrisome is that the group has been infiltrated with all manner of miscreants who want to hijack, destabilize the process and cause breakdown of law and order in the State.
“Consequently, the Command is using this medium to call on the organizers of the planned protest to call it off and explore other civic ways and means of seeking redress and drawing the attention of the Government to their plights, other than the Protest.”
Recently, a former Niger Delta militant leader, High Chief Solomon Ndigbara, called on the state government to beef up security in Ogoni communities, adding that both political and traditional leaders in the area must strategise to end the incessant killings by cultists in communities in the area.
Ndigbara, who was declared wanted prior to the 2015 general elections by the security operatives in Rivers State, denied his alleged involvement in the resurgence of killings in Ogoniland.
The former militant leader, who spoke with The Nigerian Xpress, at his home in Yeghe, Khana LGA, noted that the killings in the area had surpassed human imagination.He called on the police and state government for urgent intervention. He alleged that most chiefs and politicians in Khana were accomplices in the menace.
He said: “I am not part of the killings going on in Ogoniland; I can go under oath to prove it. Our politicians know where the problem is coming from. Maybe, it is a gang up to kill me.
“I cannot bow down to any cult group. I have told them that for us to end killings in Ogoni, let us get two people each from each community in Ogoni to form a security committee. Then anybody who does not who does not want peace at that point can leave Ogoni.
“We the Ogoni are the ones to solve our problems, people from outside cannot do it for us. It is like chiefs and politicians in Ogoni have interest in the crime going on in Ogoni. People have died too much in Ogoni. Unless we come together we cannot see peace.
He also called on the Inspector General of Police to redeploy police personnel that have served more than four years in order to get the security structure well.
Also Yamaabana Legborsi who led the aborted “Save the Soul” protest, lamented that the government had not really done enough in the security of Ogoniland. He stated that if nothing is done quickly the communities, which is allegedly deserted by the residents and indigenes, following the killings, would be occupied by the cultists, who have been carrying out all the illicit act in the area.
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He told newsmen that if the security operatives denied them freedom for a peaceful protest to the Government House to express their pains, the exercise will be fixed another day until their voice is heard and solution given to end the killings in the Ogoni communities.
He said: “Our movement was supposed to migrate from here (Isaac Boro Park) to the Rivers State Government House, Port Harcourt to call on Governor to rise up to the occasion because the Ogoniland has been submerged under the forces of anarchy, Ogoni people dies daily. Ogoni people groans in pains and in anger consequence to the widespread killings and the Rivers State government before now appeared untouched, unaffected and unmoved and we felt the Rivers state government has not been sincere enough to us because we have some similar incident in somewhere in Obio/Akpor and the state government immediately take action.
“The Ogonis have lost over 300 persons and Rivers state government has not really put in place efficient and sufficient modality to end the scourge of killing in Ogoniland and that is the reason we planned on the demonstration, to call on the governor to exercise his right and responsibility to protection of lives and property. However, the police of course, you can see (pointing at fleets of police vans at the takeoff point) have barricaded us and said that they got an information that miscreants have invaded the venue of the protest today to cause mayhem but you can see we are peaceful people.”
“The protest is our fundamental human right and we are peaceful for this protest. We don’t mind push this protest to another day we are determine to restore peace in Ogoniland and the Rivers state government must understand that we are not against it, we are not fighting Chief (Barr) Nyesom Wike, rather we are calling for peace to return in Ogoniland. We have lost properties, lives and our culture, because that has never been our tradition. Ogoni people are scattered all over the street of people because they don’t know where to live, so we are saying that those people from that deserted communities must go back to their homes and inhabit their lands”, Legborsi lamented.