*Urges Army Chief to call rampaging soldiers to order

By Emma Amaize

BOMADI- CONVENER of the pan Niger –Delta Forum. PANDEF, and South-South leader, Senator Edwin Clark, Friday, expressed shock at the killing of a soldier and theft of a General Purpose Machine Gun, GPMG, by suspected militants, who attacked a military checkpoint at Ogbogbagbene community, Burutu Local Government Area, Delta State, last week.

Militant

Clark, who spoke on phone, on Friday, to Saturday Vanguard, said: “I am aware that the army has a checkpoint at Ogbogbagbene community and there was no evidence that they were hostile to the villagers in the performance of their duty.”

“So the callous murder of a soldier and theft of a GPMP belonging to the army is wrong and I condemn it in its entirety. The military should fish out the perpetrators and bring them to book, “he added.

The elder statesman, however, asserted: “Reports reaching me from the area indicate that soldiers were harassing and intimidating innocent residents in the search for the criminals. People from the affected areas called to inform me that they were being subjected to all kinds of indignities by soldiers.”

“I heard that they puncturing tyres of vehicles, destroying speedboat outboard engines, breaking into homes and making life even more uncomfortable for residents, while food supplies to some of the communities have been cut off.

“I do not think that this is the way to go, that is why I am calling on the Chief of Army Staff to call his men in Delta and Bayelsa states to order because innocent people, who know nothing about the reprehensible misdeed of hooligans, who, obviously had fled the places under siege were the ones now bearing the consequences,” he said.