Relics of army bombardment hurt Delta riverine town

 

The people of Opuama Community, Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State are not at home in their ancestral community.

   

Reasons? They are being hurt by remnant of the military bombardment of their community in 2008.

Their community were bombed and destroyed by army during manhunt for militants who had used the community as their hot bed in 2008.

Now, the community is being threatened with terrible disease occasioned by the remains of the onslaught.

The people have already sent a Save Our Soul (SOS) message to the state and federal governments in this regard.

They want government to save them from malnutrition and other terrible disease posed by the army’s onslaught in their land.

They also expressed sadness over lack of infrastructural amenities in the community since the attack.

There is ‘high rate of poverty and gross underdevelopment due to the military bombardment of 2008.’’, they lamented.

 

Martins Adaun and two other senior chiefs, Chief Samuel Peggy and Chief Monday Ede, who spoke on behalf of the community decried the actions of the army in the community in 2008.

They told newsmen that in 2008, military personnel invaded the community and bombarded the place.

They said many people were displaced, some killed and others still missing after the attack.

Majority of the people now scattered about the creeks after their homes were destroyed, the community leaders said.

They alleged that during the military raid, farm implements and fishing materials of the people were also destroyed.

They said now they have no means to eke out a living, a development which they said had worsen their case and causing mass poverty across the land.

The community leaders said they could not comprehend the actual cause of the raid.

They said that the people were peace loving and did not do anything inimical to the state and federal government to warranted the raid.

They denied any form of oil hunkering activities or any other economic sabotage occurring in the community as the cause of the indiscriminate raid on them.

Besides, the community leaders also berated members of the Egbema Community Development Committee, the body set up by the state government,  for the misappropriation of funds meant to development the area.

The said that the over forty one communities which included Opuama were highly neglected by the embattled chairman, Chief Evans Abulu and the Secretary, Mr. Paul Genty of the development committee in the scheme of things.

The duo are been accused of misappropriating the community funds leaving the place underdeveloped.

 ‘’We are calling on the state government to rescue us from the clutches of the misrule and financial recklessness of the CDC chairman and the secretary and to bring infrastructural development to the community", they said.

They said that people of the community were wallowing in poverty with school children loitering the streets with no school for them to learn.