PRESS RELEASE: Aladja Youths Tell Ijaw Militias To Stop Attacking Aladja Community.

The way and manner the Ogbe-Ijoh militias attacked Aladja on Sunday 21/11/2021, shows they were the same people that mistakenly killed the Late Pastor Sylvester Yerinbide because they mistook him for an Aladja man who was coming from Ogbe-Ijoh to Aladja.

Before the death of the clergy man, some other persons from both communities have been attacked on that same road but Aladja has the record of the highest victims.

The attackers who came on Sunday came out from the very spot they claimed the late cleric was attacked with varying assault rifles and walked down to Aladja. Earlier on one Ogbe-Ijoh boy known as Don Kay had threatened that he was coming to attack Aladja that very day. They actually came and walked to Aladja. Getting to where the Mobile Police men are stationed they shot sporadically at the Mobile Police men and into Aladja. At this point the Army Officer In charge Udu and Ogbe-Ijoh,Major Harrison Olumeka,came with two other Army officers and witnessed the shooting by the Ogbe-Ijoh militias as he was also shot at. The shooting left one Aladja man dead and two seriously wounded from bullets fired into Aladja. Aladja was not prepared for war as they believed the Aladja and Ogbe-Ijoh Peace Vanguard had brokered peace between the two communities. It was the intervention of the Military led by the Commanding Officer, Effurun Barracks,Major Bala and Major Olumeka Harrison that saved Aladja from being overrun by the blood tasty Ogbe-Ijoh people.

Meanwhile,the Nigerian Army had earlier warned both Communities not to take to arms in the fall out of the accusations from Ogbe-Ijoh that the late cleric was killed by assailants from Aladja which the Aladja Community had denied. It could be recalled that the Ogbe-Ijoh Youth President, James Etimadimene,had earlier issued a 14-days ultimatum to the Delta State Government,All Security Agencies and the Aladja Community to provide the killers of Sylvester Yerinbide otherwise they would attack Aladja to avenge the death. This he reiterated in the Army barracks when both Communities were invited for a meeting. Yet,Major Olumeka Harrison who had a perchant for always threatening to arrest the leaders of Aladja could not do anything to stop him. If James Etimadimene could say this and actually carry out the attack then I will not be wrong to say the
Ogbe-Ijoh community has the backing of the Military (NIGERIA ARMY) or something is fishing. Earlier,there was an undertaking between Aladja and Ogbe-Ijoh communities and the Nigerian Army where the military sounded a very serious warning that any community that attacked the other will be made to face the full wrath of the Nigerian Army. It now beats my imaginations that the Nigerian Army witnessed the brutal attack on Aladja community by the blood thirsty Ogbe-Ijoh terrorists with their assault rifles and heavy weapons yet the Nigerian Army has not done anything about it. Even the four Ogbe-Ijoh boys that were arrested with arms and ammunition have since been released. Is it because Aladja do not have “big men” in the Political and Military circles that she is being treated like an orphan?
If nothing is done to Ogbe-Ijoh people for attacking Aladja community then reoccurrence is inevitable. They would leverage on the influence of their people on top to once again attack and still go scot free like they have always done.

It is so so painful for Aladja to surfer this much all because of the good our forebears did for some ungrateful fishermen.

As we speak they are planning another attack on ALADJA community which Smart Okosun rightly confirmed by his post some hours ago. Three days back they rounded off a meeting with Tompolo at Gbaramatu where they agreed to fight to the last man in Ijaw land to forcefully take the God-given land of Aladja. The meeting witnessed an oath taking by all Ijaws to attack.

We are calling on Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa to please come to our aid and do the needful so Aladja community can have peace again. It is not that we are afraid of the Ijaw nation but because we had agreed to be at peace with the Ogbe-Ijoh people as brokered by the Aladja and Ogbe-Ijoh Peace Vanguard.

But if they must attack us then the Government must know that it was never the intentions of Aladja Community to fight but our right and duties to defend our lives and properties against a marauding people who have no respect for human lives.

Mr. Kingsley Omamuli writes from Aladja Community in Udu Local Government Area of Delta State.