Mr. Abraham Ogbodo, a former Editor of The Guardian and a Niger Delta Leader of Thought from Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State, weighs in on the recent killing of soldiers in Okuama community in Ughelli South Local Government Area of the state. In this interview by SAM NWAOKO, he speaks on what he thinks about the incident and how a lasting solution could be brought to the tension.
If you are to give a summary of the incident in Okuama, what would you tell someone who is hearing about it for the first time?
It was an unfortunate incident but it doesn’t fit into the narratives being given by some of the parties. They just say that a sleeping community has the capacity to dispatch that level of military personnel. It doesn’t add up. There could be things underlying, and that is why everybody is calling for a thorough investigation. It is an unfortunate incident, nobody will want that crop of military officers to be decimated just in one go like that. It is not something that anybody will be happy about. But having said that, the circumstances also matter, it has to be properly established, if for nothing, to avoid such a thing occurring next time. That is just what we are saying. So, we call for investigation, investigation in the real sense. It is not investigation like in the rumour we are hearing that the president has given the military the go-ahead to investigate. How can the military go-ahead? They will create the charge, they will do the investigation, they will do the prosecution and they will do the adjudication. How can that be?
What do you think is wrong in what the military is doing?
Everything is wrong. The truth about it is that it is only in Nigeria that the military reacts this way. Agreed, any injury on the military, there are ways to redress those injuries, especially if it is something internal. There are other ways of addressing the injury, not for the military to lay their entire might in pursuit of any remedy. It shouldn’t be so because the military cannot go about destroying communities. They themselves are part of communities and when they retire, won’t they go back to communities? That should be in their mind. The military is built for a different purpose but in Nigeria the military is almost like the first line of defence and it shouldn’t be. We have other agencies that can come in for civil engagement; it is only when they can no longer cope that we call in the military for tactical support. Not even this kind of massive deployment and bombardment, trying to destroy a whole community.
There seems to be confusion: the community is saying one thing, the military is saying another thing. But Nigerians are wondering what peace mission the military was going on in Okuama before the incident. Do you have an idea?
That in itself is suspect. How do you do a peace mission when they tell you military is not even equipped to do civil engagement. You are going on a peace mission without the complement of the other agencies of government. You are going on a peace mission without the compliment of the police, the DSS, without the compliment of even the civil society and the community; the key officers, the DPO, the government etc. Nobody knew about this peace mission. Then, you are going on a peace mission, what was the substance of that peace mission that would now warrant the deployment of the leadership of a battalion – the strategic team for that kind of peace mission? That is a tactical movement, why should the strategic team be the one to move and you are moving like that without a tactical cover. There are so many questions that are hanging, that is the truth. In any case, nobody had reported any open war between the two communities so what would warrant a peace mission. If there had been an open war, if there were reports that the communities were on a shootout, people have been injured or killed, then it would call for concern and then the first line of deployment should be the regular police – the anti-riot which we call mobile policemen. They would have been the ones deployed to the scene. When those ones are overwhelmed, you will now call for tactical support. When you deploy strategically, it means you want to change the landscape. But there was no war, it is not another country, to do that level of bombardment and military pounding and all of that is like there was a war against another country. It shouldn’t be like that.
The narrative that they went for a peace mission is what is not clear. That is why everybody is supporting the call by Mr. President that this matter be investigated. And for it to be thoroughly investigated, the military itself has to step back. Let independent people step in and a proper investigation done and the report written on the findings of that investigation.
When the state governor visited that community, it was said that the military did not allow the governor the kind of access you would expect to be given to the chief security officer of Delta State. Does that not point to the seriousness of the matter?
The pretext was that it is an operational area and that operation is still going on and that the place is not safe for a visit. That is what they are saying. But the governor forgot that he is the chief security officer of the state and if the place is not safe for him to visit, it is the responsibility of the security agencies, including the military to make the place safe for the governor to go there and do his work as the governor. One of his jobs is to have on-ground assessment of the area so that he will have content to report to the president. He didn’t do that. So, why would the military stop the governor from entering the place? It is not that there is a crossfire such that the governor will be caught in the crossfire. All the guns and every kind of firepower that has happened in recent days have come from one side – the military. It is not an altercation in which one side is firing and the other side is firing and so it is not advisable for the governor to step in and be caught in the crossfire. If the governor wants to be there, it is for the military to cease fire so that the governor can step in and have an assessment of the area. They didn’t do that which means that there is something more to it than they are telling us.
Some people see provision of security for oil assets by non-state actors in the Niger Delta region as being one of the causes of this problem?
I cannot say that. When you give oil assets to private people because they are so widespread and official surveillance may not be enough and you have to contract aspects of it to private people, all of that should be integrated into the security approach. The truth of the matter is, there has been a kind of culture that is going on in the oil-rich region of the Niger Delta which is trying to divert the oil resource from the official channel unto unofficial channels; people trying to bring some illegal aspects to it which is generally called ‘bunkering’. But the truth about the matter is all the measures put in place by government is not able to stop that. That is the situation. Either there is some level of complicity among people — agencies of government and everybody that is involved in the security of the assets or some related inadequacies. The security is inadequate and there are thorough lines that people can infiltrate and do what the government is trying to stop, which is stealing the oil resource. But for now, we can say that this private security arrangement and all of that are intended to achieve nothing other than safeguard the oil asset for maximum benefit. That is not happening and it means that there is something that has not been properly done. Either the security arrangement is insufficient among those who are given the task to secure the assets, there is a kind of connivance or complicity among them to also steal the asset. If that is done, there is no other thing government can do because the people you have put in charge of a thing have connived to steal the thing. There is nothing more government can do, nothing more is required on the part of the government. If it sacks the entire team and put a new team there is no guarantee that they will still not follow suit because oil money comes in quantum with almost no effort.
Has there been tension between the Urhobo and the Ijaw enough to cause this magnitude of disaster?
There can never be tension between Urhobo and Ijaw that will reach that kind of scale. Urhobo and Ijaw are too integrated and intertwined as a people and it has been like that for centuries. Anybody that is speaking under that narrative is just looking for some kind of rationalisation of what is happening now. Otherwise, nobody can bring that as a reason for what is happening now. Do you know the level of integration? When I spoke on a television programme on Thursday, I said people talk about some kind of misunderstanding between the Urhobo and Ijaw, how can that be? Bayelsa is believed to be an all-Ijaw state but as I speak, the deputy governor of the state is an Urhobo man. There is a pure Urhobo community within Bayelsa State, they call it Ofoni. Ofoni is a pure Urhobo community that has been corporately integrated into Bayelsa State but they have not been culturally assimilated. They are in Bayelsa West district. So, that level of integration, that level of togetherness, that level of living together and somebody will now throw up just anything. If you go to Kiagbodo, Patani, Burutu and other borderline communities it is just the same thing. The two people are living very happily. However, there is no way – even if they are the same community – there would be some squabbles here and there, which can be settled. More often than not, these squabbles are not between one community and another community in that wholistic sense, it could be a land dispute between a family in one community and another family in another community. Then, in expressing it, they will make it look like the community appropriated it and that it is a community problem rather than an individual families’ problem. It doesn’t work like that. Then, that should not be used as a reason for this level of carnage that has just happened.
The military is denying that they visited carnage on Okuama community. What do you think happened after the killing of those soldiers?
That is a denial. It is their word against their word. Since they entered the community, who else has entered there to know what they have done or what they didn’t do? Is that not why we said that they should play by the rules? If their hands are clean and they want everybody to know about everything, they should just open for all to see. It is only in this part of the world that the military looks like they are in opposition to civil society. It is not like that in other parts of the world. In fact, in Nigeria the military is actually too much seen in civil life. They are supposed to be on their own somewhere so that when they are seen, they are honoured. In the United States for instance, when the Marines are seen other people will stand in honour and clap for them. Does that happen here in Nigeria? People see them as enemies, that shouldn’t be. We want the military to change that narrative, if they have to come into civil engagement and all of that, it is to help. When you see military outside this country it is when there is emergency or disaster. They will deploy the military because they are equipped in terms of mobility and delivery, if they are not fighting wars. Here, they are used for every thing and their training is not in that direction. The training is ‘go and take down the enemy’. By the time you now put them into settlement of civil conflicts and all of that, they will see the people as an enemy to be taken out. That is why, sometimes, you cannot blame them because they are part of the first line of the Nigerian state. You cannot even put the police to do exactly what is expected of the police. It is made to seem like without the military civil assignments cannot be handled. It is not true. So, we really have to rearrange our sequence such that civil engagement will be done by the police and all of that. We have to train them to do that so that the military can take the back seat. If they must come onto the scene, it should be on the invitation of the police that look, tactically, we are overwhelmed, we need support.
You said what happened to those soldiers was beyond the capacity of what the villagers could do. Why did you consider that to be sir?
That is my opinion. It is my view, and that is why we say there should be investigation – thorough investigation so that we will know exactly what happened. Was it that they went for a peace mission and the villagers resisted the peace mission and then for no reason kill them; or there was something? This is why everything needs to be investigated for us to know what really happened. This is not the time for us to be creating scenarios, everything needs to be laid bare.
Do you think President Bola Tinubu, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and other stakeholders have handled the matter well so far?
We are under a civil rule and when things like these happen, it is the civil authorities that should show leadership, it is not the military. I have always maintained this position. Civil authorities should show leadership and then to also say here we are. If the military acted unprofessionally, they don’t really deserve protection, they should be told that they acted unprofessionally. The military as an institution has its own rules and they have a way of fine-tuning themselves. They know it. A lot of all these things we are talking about, the military will also carry out their own investigation to know if their officers conducted themselves in the best manner. They will want to find out. They expect some level of decorum from their officers. They will find out whether that was observed. There is so much hanging in the air about this matter. We are talking of 17 military men of which four are commissioned officers! There must be something wrong somewhere. For that number to go down, there must be more to it.
Then, because that happened that battalion in Bomadi has technically collapsed. Specifically and technically that battalion collapsed. The tactical operations in that area now at Okuama and all of that is not directed by that battalion, have to be directed by another team because the leadership of that battalion has been decimated. The battalion is supposed to be lead by a commanding officer, a lieutenant Colonel, then the next to the commanding officer who is a Major; the 2ic to the Major who is a Captain have all been taken out. So, who is going to assume the leadership of the battalion as to give instructions for tactical deployment? You can see that the battalion has collapsed, which is unfortunate. What could be the reason for that? What would be the prize for that? If it was that there was some kind of operation, like pirates have taken a vessel of oil and then they must find a way to save it and in the crossfire something happened, then we will know that there is context to this. Now we are saying peace mission, what peace mission to take away 17 soldiers of which four are commissioned officers?
However, my happiness in some of these things is that the information available to us shows that the Military leadership is very disciplined. In fact they are people who will remain with the truth and ensure that the ethics that govern the military as an institution is maintained. I have it on good authority that the man General T.A. Lagbaja, the Chief of Army Staff does not tolerate any form of indiscipline and will get to the root of the matter. It might not be something for public consumption but he will get to the root of the matter and definitely there will be something the military as an institution will do to fine-tune itself. That assurance is there.
We are confident that the military leadership is not going to cover up anything. They will do their own investigation and they are going to be fair. They will do things to protect the image of the institution but if there is any wrong doing, I am confident that it will be addressed.
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