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Community Dismisses Army's Denial of Looting

This Day (Lagos)
NEWS
October 7, 2004
Posted to the web October 7, 2004

By Okon Bassey
Port Harcourt
Bille community in Degema Local Government Area of Rivers State recently raided
by armed soldiers has strongly disagreed with the explanations offered by the
army authorities that the invasion of the community was purely a military
assignment devoid of looting and destruction of property in the area.
The Joint Task Force, Operation Flush Out 3, comprising over 100 army
personnel, had on two occasions last month, September 23 and 28, invaded Bille
Kingdom with full military strength and weapons from air and land .
The army authorities, through its Public Relations Officer, 2 Brigade, Nigeria
Army, Port Harcourt, Captain Oyema Kanu, later told City Diary that the
invasion of the territory was strictly in compliance with the mandate given to
the task force to rid the state of bad boys or cultists that have been
terrorising the state of recent and recover illegal weapons.
The army's reaction came on the heels of an alarm raised by the elders of the
Bille kingdom that the swoop had left the people with tales of woe , following
the massive looting and destruction of property during the military raid.
In an interview with City Diary on Sunday, the spokesman for the community,
Pastor Dawari Nathan Remeo, said beside the scale use of guns in the community
by the invading army, which left bullets all over their houses; doors and
windows were forcefully broken, dastardly actions carried out, their shrines
were vandalized, and people's money, running into millions of naira were
stolen, just as other criminal acts were perpetuated on them.
"How can the army say, they did not loot the community, when the Task Force
invaded and assaulted even the house of the Amayanabo of the kingdom in his
absence, his mobile handset removed and other chieftaincy items?.
"Funny enough, when the Amayanabo confronted them in the next raid, their
leader or captain had to apologise and offered the king N15,000 to buy a new
handset.
"We expect the army to tender unreserved apology for what they have done in the
community and those things looted returned instead of defending themselves
because when they first came, there was no resistance from us. They brought a
list of 16 names of people they were hunting for, we co-operated and fished out
two of them that could be identified and handed them over to them, " he said.
To heighten the fears of the community, Remeo further explained that majority
of the military personnel that stormed the community were mostly of Kalabari
extraction of the stat, which since 2001, had maintained unfriendly posture
towards them .
"There are a lot of incidents, deliberate attempt by our distractors to bring
us into collusion course with the military. The Task Force people, majority of
them are of Kalabari extraction, so, we are scared that there is under current
by our distractors to use the military against us", he said, adding, "and that
perhaps account for the action against the community because some of the
elements that made up the troop were our enemies.
"We are convinced that behind the scene, there are people teleguiding this
action and the way this thing is going, if not well handled, might degenerate
into another intra-communal conflict", the community spokesman fea-red.
Appealing to the federal and state governments to intervene in the matter by
assuring the people of their safety, Remeo advised that the army should not
politicise their activities in the state by allowing a particular community to
use them against their perceived enemies.
Regrettably, he noted that during the raid of the community, a six-month baby,
who is still being breast fed, was left behind while the mother and others were
arrested taken to unknown destination.
He said they have the captain of the troops to thank otherwise, the community
would have been completely destroyed, as the soldiers, had insisted that the
directive on the village was to totally sink or destroy the kingdom.

   

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