BY Abdulsalam Abdullah
The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) has condemned the killing of 17 soldiers in Okuama community, Bomadi LGA, Delta state.
In a statement on Wednesday, Alaye Theophilus, president of the IYC, described the killing as “devilish”.
The IYC urged the military to act professionally and responsibly in identifying and prosecuting the perpetrators.
“We as a council condemn in its totality the killing of military personnel on official peacekeeping assignment at Okuama Community in Delta State,” the statement reads.
“This incident is devilish and inhuman and therefore, no sane minded can support such act in any guise. However, the Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Worldwide, once again condemns these killings in its entirety.
“As the largest ethnic block in the Niger Delta region, we are concerned about the stability and business friendly environment of the oil rich region, and as such whatever that happens in any part of the region is of serious concern to us.
“It is on this note that we have also set up an investigation and fact-finding team which is open to supporting the military and other security agencies to get to the root cause of the matter, and possibly bring the killers to face the law.”
The IYC president maintained that Okuama is not a community in Bayelsa state, stressing that the killing of military personnel did not happen on an Ijaw land.
“We plead that when moving to fish out the killers that the whole community should not be destroyed because of the action of few individuals,” he said.
“As a people, what we have experienced over time is that, when an individual does something bad to military men operating in our region, reprisal from the military is always against the entire community.
“As we speak, the fears of our people have shown up again as the said Okuama Community has been completely burnt down and all the occupants made homeless, and are now refugees in neighbouring communities.”
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