The National President of Ijaw People’s Development Initiative, IPDI, Comrade Austin Ozobo, has called on youths in the various ommunities in Delta State to defend themselves against killer herdsmen in their lands as well as form a neighbourhood security watch to check their activities.
Ozobo who made the call during an interview with our Correspondent in Warri, said they should stop waiting for the Police and military before taking actions.
He stressed that the youths should go after killer herdsmen that come in to terrorize their communities.
According to Ozobo, “That is the only way those criminals will run out of our territories.”
Ozobo also challenged some of the youths who are suspected cultists to engage the killer herdsmen who go about terrorizing their kinsmen, injuring, cheating and stealing from them.
“This is the time for these cult boys to stand firm to defend their people if they are capable enough or if they have the power as they are boasting. They should go after the killer herdsmen, battle out with them, engage with them, shoot out with them. This is how we can know they have power, not just come and intimidate their own kinsmen.”
While noting that he is not comfortable with the state of insecurity posed by the killer herdsmen across the state, Ozobo said he is disappointed that Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, who is Chairman of the South-South Governors Forum purportedly said he was waiting for directive from the Presidency to inform him of the next line of action over the establishment of the proposed South-South Security Network to address the issues of insecurity in the region.
“That singular pronouncement from Okowa is a disappointment in a time like this when your people are being killed and maimed by some invaders who came in deliberately under the pretext that they are herdsmen, and they began to murder people.
“This is an agenda of some persons to infiltrate some territories which for now does not belong to them.
“If they begin to come in this way with threat, killing to subdue and intimidate the people, they believe by the years they propose, may be in ten years time, they will be able to subdue and conquer certain territories which does not belong to them.
“They are coming with some kinds of ideology – an Islamization ideology. And you are still claiming that you are still waiting for a directive from the Presidency. The Governor of Delta State and all other South-South governors don’t seem to have the safety of lives and property of their people at heart. We are highly disappointed.”