Rivers community air-raid: IPDI wants marauding military personnel to face justice

•Directs Uduoda community to sue the military for N100billion damage

A foremost Ijaw rights group, the Ijaw People’s Development Initiative, IPDI has condemned in strong terms the military air raid of the Uduoda community in Eugene kingdom in Ahoada West Local Government Area of Rivers State.

The group, in a statement by its National President, Comrade Ozobo Austin on Monday, said Niger Delta Communities were unnecessarily bombed and destroyed by Nigerian forces due to an attempt to completely subdued the people to rule over the large oil deposit in the region.

The statement which was titled: “Rivers community air-raid: IPDI wants marauding military Taliban to face justice” urged the militarised Community to sue the military for at least N100billion naira damage to serve as a deterrent to criminal intended military commanders and their boys.

The statement reads partly: “I have no apology for describing some military personnel as marauding Taliban, the reason being that no force is expected to destroy her people with weapons of mass destruction or meant for external aggression because of some criminal elements or activities were suspected in a community.

“It may interest you to know that there is no city or town in the world that does not harbor a criminal element or is completely free from criminal activities.

“If this barbaric invasion in the Niger Delta should be embraced, then the military should invade the entire world for consciously or unconsciously abhorring criminal elements or activities.

“If Nigeria military is not lopsided or sectional, Kaduna, Zamfara, Sokoto, Abuja, Yobe and other cities and towns in the northeastern part of the country abhorring large presence of bandits and terrorists be heavily air-raided.

“I am seriously upset, now I don’t care to know the crime in which the community was shelled because thousands of such crimes are perpetrated in the cities and towns of northern Nigeria and no raid has been carried out. This shows that Nigeria’s military operations are selective and lopsided.

“So I am not moved by this lopsided attacks against Niger Delta Communities in whatever coloration the military wants to paint it to justify their inimical action.

“Currently, Abuja is under siege of Islamic terrorists and I expected Abuja to be bombed with the Islamic Taliban including all innocent people thereof, as it is done to peaceful law-abiding Udouda community in Rivers state.

“I want to state unequivocally that a community abhors some suspected criminal elements does not mean that there are no good people in the community. So the military should be brave enough to avoid causalities if there should be any such operations in such areas. If you say the good people should evacuate such a community, I will ask you why the people in Northeast, Abuja, Kaduna, and others have not relocated despite the heavy presence of bandits.

“I want to reiterate that the Uduoda community is not a militant hideout or camp and can’t be shelled or bombed with crude military intelligence.
This is a community that has Government schools, churches, MTN max, government power lines, and others.

“I have directed Niger Delta Communities to sue the Nigerian military for at least N100billion naira for any unlawful military torture, harassment, and invasion to check the excessive militarization of Niger Delta Communities.

“I, therefore, called on the governor of Rivers State, His Excellency Nyesom Wike, Chief of Defence Staff, and Chief of Army Staff to prevail on the military taskforce, Operation Delta Safe in Rivers and Bayelsa State to stop further invasions in Niger Delta Communities and ensure the military personnel who have perpetrated this crime against Uduoda community be made to face justice.” The group asserted.