Community Crisis: Bayelsa Reiterates Commitment to Peace, Security 

Olusegun Samuel in Yenagoa

Bayelsa State Government has restated its commitment to peace and security as a first order priority, assuring the people that no community will exist as an ungoverned space in the state.

The state Deputy Governor, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, gave the assurance yesterday during a meeting with the leadership of Tarakiri Kingdom, Egbemo-Angalabiri Community and heads of security agencies at his office in the Government House, Yenagoa.

A statement issued by his media aide, Mr. Doubara Atasi, quoted the deputy governor as saying that the government would continue to work closely with  security agencies at all levels to provide top-notch security to engender peace and socioeconomic development in the state.

To this end, Senator Ewhrudjakpo assured them that the security architecture would be further strengthened to make it impossible for non-state actors to overrun and supplant duly constituted authority in any Bayelsa State community.

Addressing the Egbemo-Angalabiri crisis, the deputy governor lamented that as a Tarakiri son, he was ashamed that the community has been in the news for the wrong reasons for quite some time now.

He noted that Egbemo-Angalabiri is not the only oil-bearing community in the state, and therefore, wondered why its indigenes were always embroiled in crises leading to the loss of lives and valuable property.

While promising that the government would wade into the current crisis that led to the killing of one Mr. Funkeye Lucky, Ewhrudjakpo conveyed the condolences of the state government to the bereaved family.

He equally charged the Chairman of Ekeremor Local Government Council, Belemu Nemine; the Tarakiri Council of Chiefs and prominent people of the community, including the Deputy Speaker of the state House Assembly, Hon Michael Ogbere, to also make efforts towards resolving the problem.

He said: “The security agencies will compare notes and ascertain what is on ground at Egbemo-Angalabiri. We have our own means of getting justice across to those who deserve justice.

“I like to once again appeal to every aggrieved person, particularly the bereaved family not to take the laws into your hands because no two wrongs can ever make a right. We have always emphasised that whenever such things happen, there is law enforcement.

“The arm of the law appears to be short but once it catches up with you, you cannot lose yourself from its clutches. We will do everything to maintain our powers as a government.

“We will not allow any community to be overrun by non-state actors to become an ungoverned space. We are going to push far in this regard because our leniency is being wrongly interpreted as incapacity and weakness.”

In his contribution, the Pere of Tarakiri, His Majesty King Seiyifa Koroye, noted that his investigations revealed that the current crisis in Egbemo-Angalabiri might not be unconnected to the existing rivalry between two staff of a private oil facility security company who are locked in supremacy battle in the community.

Also speaking, representatives of the bereaved family, Chief Dickson Okpokunou and Mr. Dennis Wilson, said their son, Mr. Funkeye Lucky, allegedly killed by operatives of a private security company on March 1 had never engaged in any oil bunkering activities in his lifetime.

They called on the state government to prevail on the killers of Lucky to make his corpse available to the family for proper burial.