Razed Ijaw communities demand N1bn compensation
Written by xxxxxxxx     
Sunday, 10 August 2008 
AGGE Federated  Communities in  Ekeremor Local Government Area of Bayelsa State have demanded N1billion compensation from the Federal Government to rebuild  part of the area which was reduced to rubbles last Monday by the Joint Task Force.

They are also calling for the immediate resignation and prosecution of the JTF commander, Brigadier General Wuyep Riptim, over the claim that his men recovered some anti-aircraft guns and ammunition from the area. The  natives described the claim as “the greatest lie of the century.”

Speaking at a press conference, weekend in Yenagoa, chairman of Agge Federated Communities, Chief Korus A. Balakumo, wondered how the natives who are predominantly fishermen and barely living from the little proceeds from their daily toiling on sea save enough money to procure such sophisticated weapons. He also described as untrue the JTF commander's claim that the youths of the community engaged the soldiers in a gun battle, noting that the commander was misinformed by his overzealous subordinates. The people of Agge, he noted, are well schooled to respect and obey constituted authority and agents of government. His words, “When the JTF arrived and shot into the air, the villagers all deserted the village without resistance. To be fair to the JTF, they did not shoot at the fleeing villagers. Only one person died as a result of exhaustion and shock. “As expected, there was pandemonium when the JTF attacked from behind the community. Everyone ran into the mangrove forest and the JTF razed the community to the ground. After the JTF left, the elders and youths decided to investigate the cause of this unprovoked and barbarous attack on us. We made some calls and received a report that illegal oil bunkerers attacked a JTF base at Bomadi, making away with some arms and ammunition. But the JTF suspected the youths from Agge for being the brains behind the attack.”

Exonerating Agge of any complicity in the Bomadi incident, he said the community youths even vowed to search for the perpetrators. Lamenting the hardship visited on the community, he said over a hundred houses including the community civic centre were razed with about one thousand persons displaced, fishing equipment and properties worth several millions of naira destroyed while several persons are still missing.

“Most of the villagers who were away fishing in the sea and surrounding creeks came back to meet what was once their homes in rubbles with the result that they were left with nothing other than the clothes on them thereby exposing them to the vagaries of the elements,” he lamented stressing that unless urgent assistance is given to the community many of the natives who survived the attack might not recover from the trauma.

While calling on the government to arrest and prosecute the JTF boss and soldiers who carried out the attack to serve as deterrent to others  Balakumo also pleaded with the federal, state and local government to come to the aid of the community by providing relief materials to the displaced persons so as to alleviate the plight of the innocent villagers.

Touched by the plight of the community, the Ijaws in the disapora have launched an appeal fund for immediate relief for the traumatized people of Agge to overcome their present hardship. Tagged Agge Relief Fund, the move, Sunday Vanguard gathered, is to help give the people succour pending when the relevant authorities would come to the aid of the community.

A source said the contribution which is to be channeled through the Ijaw Foundation for those residing in the United States and through the Ijaw Peoples Association for those living in Europe is to save the people from dying before their time due to their exposure to the elements. “Imagine the sick, the newborn, old and infirm. Who ever they are, we do not need to know them to act, Agge needs our support,” the source, based in the US, lamented.

bilymuse:

this is the only way our soldiers knows how to fight; they attack innocent civilians and burn down villages.

WilyWily:

These are the hand work of Fulani/Hausa/Yoruba dirty stinking thugs that call themselves Soldiers,

doyin13:


Ijaws are pathetic aqua-mimicking human mistakes.

The world is indifferent really with the loss of another of their villages.

I reckon a few more of their villages should be razed.