■ Pledge to track down, hand over perpetrators
From FEMI FOLARANMI, Yenagoa
AMID tension in Foropah community over the killing of three soldiers attached to the Joint Task Force, Operation Pulo Shield, the leaders of the community have exonerated the people of complicity in the attack.
They have also appealed to the people of the community that fled to Ekeni to return home following the offer to collaborate with security agencies to fish out the killers.
Many people from the community had fled to neighbouring communities over fear of invasion by military personnel.
Investigations at the jetty indicated that boats have stopped loading to the community as people do not want to incur the wrath of military personnel that have been positioned at strategic locations on the waterways.
At a meeting convened by the community leadership in Yenagoa, they bemoaned the incident and decided to send a delegation to meet with Governor Henry Seriake Dickson and explain the position of the community on the incident. Speaking in Yenagoa after the meeting with Governor Dickson, the Apoi-kori the 7th of Apoi kingdom, Chief Ebi Llyod Alamene decried the incident and expressed the community’s readiness to go into the creeks and surrounding villages to fish out those who committed the crime.
His words: “Foropa community is not an abode of militants and we do not harbour criminals or hoodlums. The JTF has been with us for over five years and so they know how peaceful we are. These persons came from the river and operated and left so we too are looking for them. Concerning the incident that happened on May 10, our hearts are bleeding. This is because we don’t believe in violence in Foropa. The army has come to settle down with us and Foropa has been peaceful. We condemn the killing by all standards and we will never support it.
“We can never be for it. We are ready to cooperate with the government to go into the creeks and the surrounding villages, wherever they are to fish them out and hand them over to the government. We are a harmless people; we don’t have guns, but we can give information.”
Also in an interview, another leader, Bipeledei Enere Alexander, said Foropah people should come back to the community because the leaders have extracted a commitment from the military and government that the community would not be attacked since it was not people in the community that killed the soldiers.
“Our people were not part of the gunmen that attacked the soldiers. We are not involved and we told the military and the government. Nobody in Foropah is involved in the killing of soldiers. We would work with security agencies to fish out the killers. We would not allow them to give us a bad name. Our people should just come back home. A lot of things are happening now in the Niger Delta region because of the Buhari government, those boys just came to attack the military checkpoint to steal arms. They are not people from Foropah,” Alexander said.