Crisis is currently looming in Delta state following plans by governor Ifeanyi Okowa and the state commissioner of Police, Mr. Zanna Ibrahim to grant amnesty to ‘killer’ herdsmen in the state even as The Delta Security Networks, the umbrella body of the Urhobo Security Network, the Anioma Security Network and the Delta South Security Network, has condemned and rejected the proposed amnesty for the ‘killer’ herdsmen.
The proposal is among the resolutions reached at the stakeholders’ conference convened by the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Zanna Ibrahim, to curb the incessant alleged rape, maiming, and killings by Fulani herdsmen in the state. The 12 point resolutions in the police report, obtained by HardReporters, which includes amnesty for herdsmen has continued to generate bad blood in the state, making the Delta Security Networks to insist on the identity of the herdsmen’s nationalities and their possible repatriation.
Arising from an emergency meeting in Asaba Wednesday, the groups in a joint protest letter signed by the leaders of the groups, Comrade Itolddem Daghwere, Onwuamalieze Henry and Warri Eriques, and made available to our correspondent, said the implementation of the police amnesty report would truncate the Bill on herdsmen activities before the state’s House of Assembly, lamenting that the six months of foot dragging by Governor Ifeanyi Okowa on the menace of herdsmen across the state has led to loss of lives and properties.
“The recommendation of an amnesty in the police report is alien to us. We wonder who is to be given amnesty is it the militant herdsmen who we suspect to be foreigners and not Nigerians as claimed by their leaders or the defenceless Deltans who are the victims of their onslaught?”
The groups while saying that the 12 point report was conceived to kill the bill, which has reached public hearing stage at the House of Assembly, and to stop the problem of herdsmen attack in Delta state, however endorsed the bill for the control of nomadic cattle rearing and an effective neighbourhood watch scheme to ensure the protection of Deltans and intelligence gathering on herdsmen activities.
The groups threatened to troop to the streets again “if the Bill is not given priority attention as enough is enough.”
