Breaking: Women demonstrate against the armed Okuama youngsters’ return.
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The women of the Okoloba community in the Bomadi local government area staged a protest this past weekend against armed youths they claimed were returning from Okuama in Ughelli South local government area and jeopardizing the tranquility of the riverine area.
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The Okoloba community chair lady, Mrs. Timipakebi Goodwin, and the secretary, Mrs. Mary Koibi, led the women carrying the placards. They organized a peaceful demonstration wearing black clothing along the community’s coastal edge, chanting against bloodshed and violence and putting out a call to action for the federal government to assist them.
Some inscriptions on the placards read: ‘We say No to violence’, ‘Enough of the killings on our land’, ‘Armed Okuama youths returning in a commando style’, ‘We say No to the return of armed youths of Okuama’, ‘Resettle Okuama people among their Ewu brothers in Ughelli South LGA’, ‘We mourn the killing of the 17 soldiers’ and among others.
The chairlady of Okoloba, Mrs Goodwin, speaking to newsmen with a written address that was made available to security apparatuses, which include the police, DSS, NSCDC, JTF as well as the acting chairman of Bomadi local government council, noted that the latest killing by the youths of Okuama showed that they could kill human beings at the slightest provocation.
The women’s presentations as well as the written address read in part: “First, we the women of Okoloba community sympathize with the killing of 17 soldiers and officers of the Nigerian army on a peace and rescue mission to Okuama, following the kidnap of our son. We sincerely mourn their untimely death and pray for the repose of their souls. We also pray for their families.
“However, less than 24 hours after the exit of the troops from Okuama, a fresh crisis erupted with another neighboring community, culminating in the killing of one person while three other persons were seriously injured. The person who was killed and those sustaining machete wounds were alleged to have gone there to loot.
“The latest killing showed that the people of Okuama can kill a human at the slightest provocation; the sanctity of human life means nothing to them. It also shows that neighboring Ijaw communities like Okoloba are not safe.
“So, resetting the people of Okuama in their present location, which is in-between communities in Bomadi local government area, is an attempt to encourage further communal clashes and bloodbath.
“Just last week, youths of the Okuama community came out of the Mein-toruabubor creek, which leads to Ewu, on three speedboats all of them in camouflage. They shot sporadically in the air before proceeding to Okuama. They moved to and fro the creek three times, and every time they shot their guns in the air at the entrance of the creek.
“We are calling on the federal government to come to our aid, and the panacea to these incessant clashes and killings is for the government to relocate Okuama to the Ewu clan in Ughelli South Local Government Area, where they truly and rightly belong.
“Resettling them among their people in the Ewu clan of Urhobo land will foster mutual trust among themselves as they are of the same ancestry and speak the same dialect”.
