Okowa to Aladja-Ogbe-Ijaw: Your actions are barbaric

·         Says no body has right to close any road

·         President-Generals, youth and women leaders to report  weekly to security agencies

·         To sanction monarchs over unrests

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa this morning, Tuesday, 20/12/2016 expressed total disgust for the gory stories emanating from the Ogbe-Ijoh and Aladja communities where communal disagreements have degenerated into ethnic conflicts resulting in killings and beheadings of members of the opposing communities.

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa

At a State Security Council meeting at Unity Hall, Asaba with traditional rulers from the Ijaw and Urhobo ethnic extractions in attendance the governor decried the state of insecurity being foisted on both communities by disgruntled elements, pointing out that the situation is not acceptable to his government.

"When we degenerate to this level, only God knows where we are taking our communities to. And beyond this, you see people still talking tough; they are not even ashamed of the kind of situation that is happening in their domain. People are still talking tough concerning such things. I don't think the security agencies will just sit back and continue to just watch.

“ I am aware that when the first one happened, my CP has to leave Asaba at about quarter to nine in the night and he arrived Warri, I heard, at about 11pm, and was there till the early morning of the following day. I don't think that we can continue in that manner. And what we are seeing is that people are beginning to call on the rest of the Urhobos, the Ijaws are beginning to call on the Ijaws, so they are trying to drag the thing from a community affair to become an ethnic affair, and that is very evil, very evil that cannot be tolerated. That is like trying to declare war within Delta State, and this is something that is not tolerable at all,”Governor Okowa said.

Warning that his government will not take kindly to what is happening, he declared: “The security agencies will not close their eyes to such neither will I stand in as governor and pretend as if the situation on ground is something that should be welcomed. So I thought that I needed, first to call all the traditional rulers of Urhobo extraction and all of Ijaw extraction, and I thank you all for coming in large numbers, to let you know that we have been doing a lot concerning this, but it appears to us that our brothers and sisters and young ones within the Aladja and Ogbe-Ijoh communities are not ready for peace.

“ It appears to us that they are trying to drag us into an ethnic war which should not be, and which is not going to help anybody by their utterances and by what they are doing or what you see them do. And I want to make a special appeal that we need your cooperation, going forward, and that on our part as a state and security agencies, we are not just going to close our eyes as if we are seeing the danger that is coming ahead of time, and that we need your cooperation in this line so that together we work to achieve peace. Very offensively too, the road between Aladja and Ogbe-Ijoh has been essentially closed. We have made all kinds of appeal to enable them open that road. We are told that it opened but most times that the security agencies have gone in mufti, unfortunately for those who block the road, to find that the road is usually blocked and people are harassed.

“I have repeatedly said that nobody has the right to close a road. A road may pass any community but once that road is put in place, it becomes the property of the government of the land; it is no longer the property of the community. And that also to some extent has continued to escalate the issues on ground,” Okowa said.

While strongly condemning the barbaric level to which the conflict has degenerated, the Governor said: “. While we are going to allow our traditional rulers to offer us advice on the way forward, at our last security council meeting, we have looked into these issues and exhaustively discussed them, we were shown the pictures of those who were beheaded and who today may have been buried without their heads because we have decided to turn ourselves barbaric. And we have decided we are not going to tolerate what has been going on in the past.”

He continued: “In the first instance, I am directing that presidents-general, youth leaders and women leaders of every community must keep on reporting to the security agencies every week. And the very day we have any crisis in any community they must be locked up and nobody should call me.  

”And for the two traditional rulers, we have a lot of respect for your office, but I wish to caution that that respect will be withdrawn if we have any further crisis. And I will not hesitate to take appropriate actions against the two traditional rulers if we have any further crisis.   

“We cannot continue to act in this manner. I have already put the federal authorities on the alert in this and I will be briefing them formally. I want to plead that you do not try our patient,”Okowa said.