H ON Evance Ivwurie, the lawmaker representing
Ethiope Constituency, Delta State, knew that that
the mission he chose to prosecute was a deadly
one, yet he decided to forge ahead.
In April, he led a team of security agents, who he
did not tell the nature of the operation until 30
minutes into a forest in the outskirts of Abraka
Kingdom which herdsmen used as hideout and
had dug tunnels. Ivwurie spoke to Sunday
Vanguard on the daring mission, why he chose to
keep the details until the last -minute from the
police, the threat to his life and his resolve despite
the odds.

What spurred your campaign against
herdsmen in your community?
•Ivwurie
What actually spurred me is the determination to
provide leadership, a leadership that eradicates
the heinous activities of the herdsmen, who I
refer to as terrorists. They have formed the habit
of killing my constituents and, on daily basis, they
kill a minimum of two to three persons and rape
girls.
When indigenes go to farm, they attack. In
Abraka alone, they amputated two young men.
They left women with one hand each; herdsmen
took the other hand. We have a case of a woman
known as Beauty, who they molested across the
river; she resisted every attempt to rape her, but,
in the end, they slaughtered her.
When they attack, they leave their signature
because their killing is dastardly, they would
shoot, machete the victims and you will see the
footprints of their cattle.
To answer your question, precisely in February, I
received a distress call that one of our brothers,
Mr. Francis Akpeni, who was a farmer and hunter,
had gone to his farm, and that the community
was looking for him. This went on for days until
they found him on the fifth day. His remains were
already decomposing with bullet wounds and
machete cuts all over his body. Around the area
they found him, there were footprints of cows.
The report touched me and I embarked on
intelligence gathering. Since I grew up in the
area, I know where these herdsmen do their
grazing and this is very important because we
need to know the nature of business of strangers
in our environs.
In the process of my intelligence gathering, I
received the news of another brother, Francis
Okotie, who was a lecturer with the Library
Department of the Delta State University with
children who combined his government job with
farm business.
Okotie had gone to his farm to do fumigation and
the cattle rearers did not take that lightly
because, after fumigation, if the cattle feed on
the grass, it has an adverse effect on the cattle,
and, because of this, the herdsmen shot him
severally and used machete to design his body
too. Villagers found his corpse the next day.
In my quest for public service all over the world, I
have found out that one of the most important
ingredients of leadership is courage.
I am not going to wait for a herdsman to come
from Kaduna, Chad or wherever and slaughter my
constituents on a daily basis and I would be
running to the media to cry out. I am sorry to
disappoint those that think I should wait, then go
and negotiate after they have done the harm.
Some people warned me that the herdsmen are
very violent and that no one in this country dares
them and we should negotiate with them or the
government does some palliatives to settle the
matter. I said no and that I would get to the root
of this problem and we all know that in this
country, to solve any problem, you have to get to
the root; else, whatever you are doing is just
window-dressing.
Owing to my understanding of the terrain, I
decided to go to the root of the problem by
asking, ‘where are these people? Let me go and
look for them’.
Having done my intelligence, I called the DPO in
charge of Abraka and told him that I wanted 50
mobile police officers, who have to go with me for
an operation; I did not tell him the nature of the
operation. He asked about the kind of operation
and I told him there were certain things that
happened in the area, which I needed to deal
with. He said he could not get me that number of
police officers but could get 35.
I told him that I would give him details of the
operation 30 minutes to when we were about
leaving and we finalized. I also called the vigilante
group and told them I needed only five of their
men and we moved to the station and that was
when I told the DPO.
When I told him, he said, ‘Oga, I am tired of these
herdsmen. Since I got here, they have killed eight
people, not to talk about the women they have
raped and men attacked’.
Therefore, we took the risk knowing that the
herdsmen are very violent, but I provided a quick
orientation for the officers that the motive was
not to kill any of them and that remains till today.
The plan was to take them alive, which is what we
anchored the operation.
The campaign was: ‘Arrest, meet their sponsors
and engage them’. Though there are claims that
these herdsmen are faceless, there are people
behind them. Therefore, the plan was that when
we take these herdsmen and police detain them,
their sponsors would come to bail them, and we
would interface with them and know if they were
actually here for real business. This is because it is
wrong to graze illegally in our farmlands.
So we needed to discuss, and we drove and
crossed the River Ethiope and the forest to where
these herdsmen are settled. When we got there,
we saw so many of them in different camps. But
we did not even envisage that they know
everywhere in the bush more than many of us
and you would agree with me that everybody
would not work in the same spirit like myself, as
some of the policemen were afraid that we might
be shot at from the bush.
Before we parked our vehicles to come down, the
herdsmen ran into the bush and into some
tunnels and deep trenches inside other parts of
the bush, which could make them elusive.


Are you saying the cattle rearers have
sponsors?
I can tell you they have sponsors and leadership.
The ones you see escorting the cattle are just
errand boys as there are people who own these
cattle and are behind the gang. If you look well,
in between the herd, there is at least a cow,
which they tie their weapons on each side of the
belly. They also have talisman. We know there are
people, who drive tinted jeeps into the bush to
meet these herdsmen to share information with
them, and some even landing in helicopters in
the bush.
However, if you are not a committed leader or
police officer, you would hear about them and
wave the issue aside.

The tunnels you saw, how did they look like,
what is the purpose?
The purpose is that, like the day we encountered
them, they can easily escape through the
tunnels.
Since you made these findings, have the
police destroyed the tunnels?
My promise to my people is that we would be
going back there, but this is a security matter, I
would not like to expatiate on that. Nevertheless,
after that visit, many things have happened in
quick succession and for so many people, it was a
major change as the people were benefiting from
that business. You cannot see herdsmen coming
from other parts of the country to your
community without the involvement of some
locals.