By Austin Ogwuda
FORMER Director, Department of State Services (DSS), Mr. Mike Ejiofor has faulted the ill-fated purported peace mission that led to the gruesome killing of 17 military personnel in Okuama community in the Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State, Nigeria .
He said that it was a fatal error and advised that, for future operations, the Military should involve the Police and DSS operatives in such civilian related assignments.
Ejiofor spoke today, Thursday, when he appeared as a guest on Channels Television programme tagged ‘Sunrise Daily’ to offer perspective to the Okuama incident.
Said he, “If there is a peace keeping, two parties must be involved; people from the two communities must be involved, and a neutral ground will be taken, possibly the local government headquarters, if you are talking of peace initiative.
“And then, why must the Military? In fact, the military expose itself to harm’s way. If the police, the SSS, and the military were involved in this (operation), I don’t think we would have seen this kind of incident. We are not justifying the killing but it is a lesson for all of us, for the military”.
The security expert said though the military denied burning down the community, reprisals are usual for the military.
According to him, “Despite the denial by the military, it is usual with them for such reprisal attack. They will continue to say they did not but then, who razed the community?
“Nobody knows the number of casualties but we can see from videos, we can see the place burning up to the extent that the governor had no access to the place, nobody had access to the community. That is going too far”, he pointed out.
Source: Channels Television