Former Editor of the Guardian newspaper, Abraham Ogbodo has countered the widely held notion that the brutal ambush on the military, which led to the tragic loss of 17 soldiers was caused by a communal rift.
Instead, Ogbodo linked the murder of Nigeria’s 181 Amphibious Battalion soldiers to the illicit oil bunkering that has long plagued the Niger Delta region.
Speaking in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Thursday, Ogbodo, who hails from the Urhobo ethnic group, called for an exhaustive inquiry into the incident. He implores the military to permit investigators to enter the Okuama community to uncover the truth behind the attack.
Questioning the circumstances of the supposed peace mission that precipitated the attack, Ogbodo wondered why the community leaders were not summoned to the Bomadi base for dialogue.
He said; “It is not true that a misunderstanding between an Urhobo community and an Ijaw community could actually bring that level of crisis, that level of tragedy that we witnessed, it is not true.
“It’s not about communal crises. What level of communal crisis? The combined population of those communities will be less than 2,000 human beings. Where will they get the capacity to wreak that level of havoc?
“There is no crime that happens in Niger Delta that does not have crude oil and the arising benefits, and how those arising benefits can be allocated.
“What was actually compelling about a peace mission in that place that will require the strategic team going for a tactical mission? So, it shows that there are so many underlying things that we are not talking about.
“If it was actually for a peace mission, wouldn’t it have been for those community leaders to be summoned to the base in Bomadi for discussions to be held?
“This was not done- instead, the entire leadership of the battalion went to Bomadi and was so exposed, and if a mission like that was being carried by the strategic team, why was there not enough tactical cover that they were just gotten and taken out like that so cheaply?
“The Niger Delta today is a big crime scene. What matters in the Niger Delta is oil, and everything is subordinated to oil. And so, even the lives of the people, their livelihoods, are subordinated to oil. And so, the mandate is to go and get the oil out at all costs. All of this has to be addressed. If they are not addressed, nothing is going to happen.
“I think that what the president has said about the investigation should be allowed to go full course. An investigation means that independent investigators really have to get to the site, get to the scene of crime and let the investigation be done.”
