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By Editor   |   19 September 2016   |   2:35 am

Guardian Newspapers

Sir: For some years, we have experienced disorderliness, killing and breakdown of law and order in Ogbaland ( ONELGA Ogba Egbema Ndoni LGA) of Rivers State. We have seen all manners of killings between factions rising up against each other and they have destroyed peace in Ogbaland. I could remember vividly that it all started from one individual trying to protect his selfish interest.

Ogbaland consists of over 17 villages. Things are now falling apart and the centre can no longer hold. 60 per cent of the indigenes have to flee and the remaining have nowhere to go. Several banks and businesses in Omoku to be precise have folded up due to the violence and killings in the land.

These individuals who are protecting their own selfish interest are destroying the future of the youth in the land. Why would they buy arms for the youth, promise them protection, send them out of their businesses and fathers` houses and decide to camp them in the bush? They lured them into this act promising them jobs which they cannot provide. The men perpetrating this evil in the land are not only wasting the youths, but shedding innocent blood, polluting the land and making it uninhabitable for others to the extent that people are seeing corpses on the streets and in homes daily. It has degenerated to the extent that the law enforcement agencies cannot curtail them. This is not the land that I use to know.

Before, I could walk tall and beat my chest anywhere in this nation to introduce myself as an Ogba indigene. Today the reverse is the case. I am using this medium to pray that God should have mercy on us and heal our land and that government should look into the real situation on ground and find a lasting solution to this oil—rich community. I am pleading with every faction involved to let peace return to Ogbaland.

Prince Folowu princef olowu@gmail.com