With the latest revelations on the March 14 killing of 17 soldiers in Delta State, the prevalent supposition that the misapprehension between Okuama, an Urhobo community in Ughelli South Local Government Area, Delta State, and Okoloba, an Ijaw town in Bomadi Local Government Area, was the chief reason for the unimaginable massacre appears off beam.
Saturday Vanguard learned from multiple sources that a group of oil bunkerers, who were hired as mercenaries, might have carried out the bloodshed.
The Army, which is everywhere in the creek and land in Delta and Bayelsa States, searching for the killers, and stolen weapons has arrested some suspects, but it has not formally announced the capture of the killers.
Acting on intelligence, soldiers, who had laid siege to the Okuama community since March 15, invaded the Igbomotoru community in Southern-Ijaw Local Government Area, Bayelsa State, on March 17, stalking a suspected militant leader and oil thief, who has his operational base in the riverside community.
The storming of Igbomotoru swung attention to an alleged militant leader and oil thief, whose father is a retired army officer, and purportedly an Urhobo in Delta State as the mastermind of the Okuama killings. There is controversy over whether he is an Ijaw from Igbomotoru or maternally from Igbomotoru.
Some traced the militant leader’s paternity to Okuama and maternity to Igbomotoru. When the inter-communal crisis between the two communities started brewing, the community leadership, reportedly, contracted him to come and fight for them, which he did by mobilizing his boys to Okuama.
Saturday Vanguard could not immediately confirm the veracity, but it was the information that made the army send troops to Igbomotoru, Bayelsa State, in search of him.
When a strong clue emerged
However, a stout clue that oil bunkers were behind the butchery emanated when a supposed militant, who claimed to have participated in the killing, stated in a trending video, that they killed the military men for their support for another set of oil bunkerers.
He also said that if they had allowed soldiers to take away Okuama community leaders, the youths would be rendered powerless.
Generally, his statement in the video centred on divergence among oil bunkers in a part of the Niger Delta that entailed the use of soldiers to settle scores.
His words: “That is why the action (assassination of the soldiers) took place but people say the soldiers came for peacekeeping. Point of correction – no army came for peacekeeping. They are(sic) fighting in support of somebody (names withheld), who ordered them to do.”
However, within the week, another militant group, which identified itself as Amagbein Force, also in a trending video, pledged its loyalty to its leader, who happened to be the same militant leader that the army went in search of at Igbomotoru.
Could it be a coincidence? The group member, who spoke, did not make a direct claim that they participated in the killing of soldiers at Okuama, but said oil bunkering would not stop unless the government settled the matter peacefully, and easily.
He urged the Federal Government to hand over waterways security to the right person doing the work for peace to reign, saying the militants would stand with their leader, Amagbein, till death do them part.
