Delta killings: Nigeria at risk of losing sovereignty – NNPP

•Agbo Major

The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has criticised the killing of military per­sonnel in Okuama commu­nity of Delta State, saying with such carnage, the coun­try was at the risk of losing its sovereignty.

While speaking with our correspondent, Dr. Agbo Major, the party’s national chairman, who admitted to be speaking for the NNPP on the implication of killing of the officers, noted that an attack on the military is an attack on Nigeria’s sover­eignty which the soldiers represent, saying the act should remain condemnable by all well-meaning Nigeri­ans, reports Daily Independent.

Dr Agbo said: “The kill­ings were really an attack on our sovereignty as a na­tion especially going by the fact that we were told that those soldiers were on a peace mission and not as if they were going there with an intention to confront anybody. We may lose our sovereignty if we continue to attack officers on a mis­sion,” he said.

“Of course, according to what we heard, there have been differences between two communities and you have an independent arbi­ter coming to see how they would resolve your differ­ences. So there shouldn’t be any reason why they should have been victims and you turning your weapons against them. I think it is one thing every well-mean­ing Nigerians should rise up to condemn.

“For us as a party, the only caveat we have is that on is­sues like this, we believe in thorough investigation and until such is done, you can­not say who did what and what led to what and then leading to those killings. We can only urge the president, who is the commander in chief and whose men were killed, to call for a full-time and very independent in­vestigation into the incident with a view to unraveling the circumstances leading to the carnage.

“It is only when that is done that we can rightly conclude what has hap­pened in Delta State. But we in the NNPP condemn the killing of the military personnel,” he told our cor­respondent.

The NNPP chief, while condemning the killings of youths in Bayelsa commu­nity, blamed the military invasion on the refusal of the communities to cooper­ate with the army who said they were told that one of the prime suspects in the attack on the army was hiding in the community.

He said; “I blame the community because they failed to cooperate with the soldiers who said they were told one of the prime sus­pects was hiding with them.

“Do you even know what it takes or the consequence of taking the life of just one soldier, talk less of killing sixteen personnel? A whole Lieutenant Colonel, three Majors and the others. So there is nothing that is too much as a pay back to what those youths had done.