BY EMMA AMAIZE,  South-South Editor

SECRETARY to the State Government, SSG, Delta State, Comrade Ovuuzourie Macaulay spoke to Saturday Vanguard, in his office at Asaba on the security situation in the state. Excerpt:

Lately, there is the fear of Boko Haram and reprisal attacks in Sapele, Delta State, and as a matter of fact, Muslims are fleeing the state. What are the security challenges there?

Well, the issue of Boko Haram is a national issue. It started from the north and spread to Abuja, our national capital today, and it is indeed a national phenomenon. But talking specifically about Delta State and coming down to Sapele, we have all done all we can in Delta state to put measures in place not to be enmeshed in such a religious battle because it not a good thing.

In other words, we tried to educate the Muslim community in the state ahead of time not to tolerate or accommodate the violence that is going on in the north. Anybody coming here for such violence should be exposed and government has put a machinery in place using some special assistants to the governor to reach out to the Muslim community across the state because we have a good number of Muslims in this state, especially Asaba and Warri, where they have communities inhabited by them. We will not want our State to become a theatre of war, so we took that early measure, which has worked in Delta state.

The issue in Sapele to be specific is a Muslim-Muslim affair. The Muslim community in Sapele has its own issue, which has been boiling and has got to the level of eruption. One faction is saying you must teach us in Arabic, the other is saying use English.

Then, there is even a third faction, who says why should a man from so and so place want to lead us. Among the main Delta tribes that are in Delta state, the Yorubas and Hausas, there is also a disagreement, an internal problem over who should be the leader. So these are the issues in Sapele.

If the happenings were to be the Boko Haram thing, then, Sapele would not be the place where it will happen, it would have been in Warri or Asaba here where they have quarters to themselves. They don’t have the largest number of Muslims in Sapele, but the few of them they have there have problems and it is that problem that is now manifesting and

Gov. Uduaghan

coinciding with what is happening in the north and meaning is being read into it here that Christians are the ones attacking Muslims. To the best of my knowledge and from the intelligence we have gathered, that is not correct.

Even the January 8 attack that some people are saying was a reprisal attack was not so because it is the same Christians, the same Sapele youths that came to chase the other group of Sapele boys and took the man to the hospital. So, if it was a Muslim-Christian thing, why should this other group come to chase them away? We know what we call the urban boys, I mean the set of bad boys in Sapele.

It is not like any attack that is taking place in any other part of the country, the only thing now is the coincidence because this one is a Muslim that has been attacked. You cannot tell me that in the past three weeks that we have not had attacks in Sapele, which involves Christians, but nobody is reading meaning to those ones, but because this one involves a Muslim, people are crying.

And even before that one happened, many Muslims in the state, out of fear, after the Boko Haram people have given three days ultimatum to Christians in the north started moving on their own.

The governor himself sent his aides around to tell them that the state is okay, that they should not go anywhere and that nobody was planning to attack them, but of course, it is human, they feel if the ultimatum given by the Boko Haram was already being carried out with the bombing in Gombe and other places, where churches have been attacked, then, of course, there may be an extent to which Christians could hold their peace and they will fight back.

So, what they are doing is out of their own volition, not that anybody in the state has asked them to leave or there is any threat to Muslims in the state. You cannot postulate that there was no attack on Muslims in Sapele. There was and that is why they are fleeing. I spoke with a Muslim leader in the town minutes before this interview who told me that they want adequate security from the state government to guarantee them of their safety in Sapele.

I did not say that there was no attack; I said it was not a religious attack. What I am saying is there have been other attacks in Sapele of recent and the one you are talking about is not an exemption, but because this particular one has to do with a Muslim, they are reading meaning into it.

I know that the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Mamman Tsafe, a Muslim, had personally gone to address them even in the motor parks, not to go that the place is safe, that they will be protected. So, if the police chief in the state is doing that, what other guarantee do you need.

We meet at security meeting every week and these issues are discussed and individuals were asked to go and implement them. Like I said, there is Alhaji Awulu, a special assistant to the governor, who is a Muslim and from the north, who had been going around talking to them, we have other people who have been going around talking to them too.

At a time like this, what will be your advice to Deltans in terms of personal security?

Well, the first thing is for everybody to try and be on safe ground. In other words, mind where you go and what time you go to such places. That is the only thing you can tell people because the man who is planning evil will continue to plan evil. It is left for you to know how you can avoid it.

But you see, we have always maintained that in this state, we will do whatever we can to make sure there is peace. Yes, there was an upsurge between October and November and people were thinking last year December will be the worst, but because government stepped in to take some measures, which I cannot disclose on the pages of newspapers, you will agree with me that if you took census, there was no much of crime in Delta state, whether in Warri or Asaba; not even with the deluge of visitors from the East and even Deltans that came home from overseas.

Kidnapping was almost at zero level and that is because, government has introduced another dimension, which is more of intelligence and proactive than waiting for it to happen and running after the kidnappers. So,during the December period which would have given them room to operate, they could not and we want to maintain the rhythm because we have gone beyond what we were doing before now to start introducing some new measures.

You know, community policing is very important and if you are talking about security, you must go down to the community, you must have a structure that gets down to the community and very recently, the governor had a meeting with all traditional rulers in the state, where he told them what is expected of them and the need to work with government to make sure that these criminals are smoked out.

And we are going beyond what the governor said to do some other things, but we need the cooperation of the public, we need people to give us intelligence report, which will be verified, decoded and kept confidential.

Is government satisfied with the situation at Ekpan because its curfew in the area brought a measure of peace, but after lifting it, it appears that the warlords are finding their feet again?

Of course, government is watching the situation. You’d remember that sometime last year, government placed a curfew in Ekpan area of Uvwiebut after a while, the indigenes started begging and they signed an undertaking with the Joint Task Force, JTF, on the Niger-Delta that there will be peace. I don’t think that peace lasted long but government has kept eyes on Uvwie.

I cannot remember an incidence of violence during this December period in Uvwie. I am also told by the JTF people that the frequent shooting in Uvwie has reduced because there was a time that every night in Uvwie was like a war theatre, as people were exchanging fire.

With enlightenment and talking to their conscience, we will get to a situation where it is non- existent. Their traditional ruler was among those that attended the last meeting of the governor with royal fathers on the issue of security and he spoke. Whatever assistance he asked for in terms of logistics will be looked into.

I asked this question because one of the factional leaders was said to have been dragged out of his car recently and left in a pool of his blood after the curfew was lifted and lastly, the waterways of the state are relatively safe at the moment, can the government sustain the tempo, this year?

Like I said, whether on the waterways, whether on the highways, government is interested in the security of life and property in the state. So, whatever measures that have been taken that made it low, in fact, the waterways security has been very successful until towards the last quarter of last year when we had two incidents consecutively.

There was no report of any incidence on the waterways. It was piracy and as soon as those incidents took place, the government moved in with the committee and it was arrested, and there has not been reports of any incident since then and if anything, the waterways are even safer than the highways.