By Emma Amaize
FORUM of  Ekpan  Concerned Indigenes, Ekpan, Uwie Local Government of  Delta State, has called on the state government to order all combatants and persons residing in the troubled community to surrender the  weapons  in their possession within a specified period or security agents would be let loose on the  town  and anyone found with firearm would be arrested and  prosecuted.

The group,  in a letter, addressed to Governor  Emmanuel Uduaghan,  signed by its president and secretary, Mr. Terry Moses and Chief Ovie Leleji, specifically mentioned an Ekpan chief, who they identified as a sponsor, and asked that he should be placed on the watchlist.

The forum  also  called on  Uduaghan to convene a  reconciliatory conference at which victims of  Ekpan crisis, which death toll  rose to  20 in the last six months,  would be compensated and combatants  also announce publicly the cessation of hostilities by embracing themselves.

The state government had imposed a dusk to dawn curfew on the community when the killings got out of hand lately, while chiefs, women and youths of the town mobilized and invoked a curse on killers and other trouble makers in Ekpan, last month. The curfew has not been lifted.

The group stated that  having critically analysed the remote cause of the endless Ekpan crisis, it was of the opinion that general development projects in community should  be evenly distributed amongst the eight quarters of Ekpan, while  infrastructural facilities for skills acquisitions and  government industrial establishment should also  be located in the area for employment of youths.