Dickson summons community elders; says we don’t want Odi episode again

      

The Bayelsa State governor, Hon. Henry Seriake Dickson has strongly condemned the recent unprovoked attack and killing of four security personnel in Nembe Creek and three Naval personnel in Foropa community in Nembe and Southern Ijaw Local Government Areas of the State and other parts of the Niger Delta region.
He noted that such unwarranted attacks on the nation’s security personnel were portraying the state and the region in bad light.
As part of the steps to check the activities of the youths, the unwholesome trend and improve the security situation in the state, he said community leaders, elders and other stakeholders would be summoned to a meeting at a date to be announced later.


Dickson, in a statement issued on Wednesday by his Chief Press Secretary, Daniel Iworiso-Markson, personally expressed regret over the unfortunate incident.
He therefore called on the perpetrators of the dastardly killings and their collaborators to stop it with immediate effect, stressing that “Terrorism does not favour peace, neither can democracy express itself through violence.”
The Governor’s condemnation came on the heels of President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to the military to go on a manhunt for the perpetrators and clamp down on all security threats in the Niger Delta region.

Dickson stated that the killings were also putting the innocent ones in the state and the Niger Delta region in danger.

He warned that the government of Bayelsa State does not want a repeat of the Odi massacre in 1999, during the administration of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, where only the innocent people suffered the brunt of the military invasion.
The Governor called on community leaders and other stakeholders to check the activities of youths in their domains.
This was as he stated that the government is already working in concert with the security agents to bring the culprits to book and forestall any future occurrence