The Bayelsa State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has condemned Tuesday’s killing of residents of Amassoma, Southern Ijaw Local Government Area, by the police. In a statement released on Wednesday in Yenagoa signed by APC’s State Publicity Secretary-Elect, Mr Doifie Buokoribo, the party described the killings as an unwarranted display of raw power against defenceless natives.
It blamed Governor Henry Seriake Dickson for failing to exercise mature leadership through sincere dialogue with the protesting residents, but choosing, instead, to invite the police and army to visit death and destruction on the people.
APC lamented what it called “pointless cruelty” by Governor Dickson against the community of former governor of the state and Governor-General of the Ijaw nation, late Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, saying it is a re-enactment of a previous inhuman behaviour meted out to Alamieyeseigha by Dickson.
The party called for the immediate withdrawal of the soldiers from Amassoma to allow the people return to the deserted community, and an independent inquiry into the killings. It appealed to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to send relief materials to the community to reduce their suffering.
The party said, however, that Tuesday’s onslaught on Amassoma, on the orders of Dickson, “shouldn’t really surprise anyone because it was the same Dickson who, along with other protesters, buried an empty Alamieyeseigha coffin in Yenagoa years ago, in his most trying time. Dickson has, apparently, decided to kill Alamieyeseigha a second time.”
As at mid-day, Wednesday, the Police Command said it has arrested 18 persons in connection with Tuesday’s violent protest at the Niger Delta University, NDU, Wilberforce Island, in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of the state.
Trouble started after some angry women of Amassoma, the university’s host community, took to the streets on Tuesday to protest their disengagement from the institution as the state government implements its ongoing public service reforms.
The protesting women were said to have locked up the university gate, which lock they welded with the help of a welder, blocked the Amassoma-Tombia Road and carried mock coffin of the state governor, Seriake Dickson, while demanding reinstatement.
Meanwhile, the state government has condemned the violence and attack but blamed it on those it called hoodlums. In a statement on Tuesday, Special Adviser to the Governor on Media Relations, Mr. Fidelis Soriwei, blamed opposition political leaders for the mobilisation of the “hoodlums.”
