The Bayelsa State Government has insisted that the perpetrators of last month’s dastardly attack on Opu-Nembe in Nembe LGA which left no fewer than four people dead must be made to face the full weight of the law.
The Deputy Governor of the state, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, stated this during a meeting with members of the Opu-Nembe Council of Chiefs and security commanders in the Government House in Yenagoa.
He said the state government was ready to work with the security agencies to ensure that those behind the February 15, attack were identified, apprehended and prosecuted no matter how highly placed they were.
Ewhrudjakpo, who allayed the fear of the Opu-Nembe people over a fresh outbreak of violence, assured the chiefs that security personnel deployed in their communities would remain until normalcy was restored.
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On the alleged banishment of some indigenes of Opu-Nembe based on political sentiment, Ewhrudjakpo pointed out the grave consequences that would befall any community found culpable in perpetrating such “crude, uncivilised and unlawful act.”
He reiterated the government’s zero tolerance for crime and criminality, warning that nobody should be prevented from entering the community to exercise their political rights in the forthcoming elections.
He said, “Society has grown beyond that level of banishing people who have different political views or leanings.”
In his remarks, the spokesman of the Opu-Nembe Chiefs Council, Chief Robert Efere, said the community had not banished any individual as was rumoured.
He pointed out that the outcome of the recent presidential and National Assembly elections proved that the community provided a level-playing field for all political parties and their candidates.
Bayelsa State Commissioner of Police, Mr Ben Okolo, commiserated with the community, particularly families that lost their members to the attack, and called on the community to release the corpses of those killed to the police.
