REMINISCENT of the military era, about 10 soldiers flogged and used boots on hundreds of women protesting at Ovre-Eku (Iwevbo) community yesterday, over a land which had been in dispute for years between
Edo and Delta states.

The women, numbering over 500, wearing black
clothing, had converged at Eku community from where
they marched to the disputed land carrying a coffin
covered in palm fronds to express their displeasure
over alleged sale of the land to an oil company. Getting to the spot at about 10:45a.m., they were accosted by the soldiers, who ordered the women to leave the site. The women insisted on being addressed by a representative of the company. Angered by the stand of the women, a senior military officer identified to be the Unit Commander at the site, Lt. E. D. Oworobo, cocked his riffle, threatened to shoot and then ordered his men to flog the women.

Two journalists, including a Vanguard correspondent,
who had accompanied the protesting women, suffered
the same fate. The soldiers chased the fleeing women
into adjoining bushes at the site. The aged among the women, some in their 80s, who could not run, were trampled on by the soldiers and others flogged with tree stems.

Unit Commander’s reaction
When the Unit Commander, Lt. E. Oworobo, was
contacted by this reporter to comment on the way and
manner the women were treated, he described the reporter as an “idiot and a madman.”
Meanwhile, the soldiers again went berserk at about
11:30a.m., invaded parts of Ovre-Eku community,
destroyed nine motorcycles and 13 bicycles, while
residents of the community fled, following the arrival of
the soldiers in a white Toyota Hilux van.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/03/soldiers-flog-boot-protesting-women-in-delta/

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this article was already post on front page today