By Austin Ogwuda
HUMAN Rights Protection Congress also known as Citizens Rights Concern Enhancement Initiative has expressed serious concern over the fate of civilians trapped in Okuama community following the continued occupation of the Military.
Leader of the group Amb. (Pastor) Edewor Egedegbe in a telephone interview with Advocate has therefore called for the immediate withdrawal of the Army men there to enable facilitation of aids to the needed population while calling for institution of a high-powered panel to thoroughly investigate the remote and immediate causes of the bloodbath in the community.
According to him, “Okuama community, we were told is under military siege in a worrisome situation like we have found ourselves. What is the plight of women and children in that agrarian community? Do they still have their right to freedom in such a situation under armed conflict.
“When a community is razed down in a vengeful manner by the military as we saw in Odi some years ago, women and children are left vulnerable and this is our own concern. We are calling on the local, state and federal governments to send relief materials to the vulnerable in that area.
“In a peacekeeping mission”, he went on, “the primary stakeholders must be present; why were traditional rulers, President Generals from both communities not there to talk to their people? The Police and the DSS were conspicuously absent in the military’s peacekeeping efforts, and this is not the best practice. The land dispute between the two communities is age-long and all hands must be on deck to resolve it and certainly, the military is not and shouldn’t have been an option”.
