The leadership of the Labour Party (LP) has denounced the Thursday’s brutal killing of five soldiers deployed to protect citizens in Abia State over the Biafran Day celebration.
The party, however, urged the military to go after the perpetrators of the crime only, and avoid any collateral damage on the side of the innocent and law-abiding citizens.
National Publicity Secretary of the party, Obiora Ifoh, on Sunday in a statement in Abuja, also commended Abia State governor, Dr Alex Otti, for his prompt action by pledging to support the military in whatever possible means to ensure that the culprits were brought to book and for also announcing a N25m bounty on the perpetrators of the heinous crime.
“While we commiserate with the Chief of Army Staff, Major General Taoreed Lagbaja and the entire military command on the unfortunate incident and pray for the repose of the soul of the gallant heroes, we are however worried by the threat by the military command to avenge the death of the soldiers.
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“We urge the military to be professional in their approach for vengeance in order to avoid further loss of lives. Unknown gunmen or whatever names they chose to bear do not deserve to be spared.
“They have caused untold and unnecessary pains to the South East and deserved to be wiped out but we urge that the military response to this latest act of provocation must be measured and targeted at these elements alone,” Ifoh said.
He noted that Abia State has remained the most peaceful state in the entire South East due to the untiring efforts of the state government to weed the state of all criminal elements in the last one year, thus, the LP thinks this latest attack was a deliberate act to conflagrate the state with actions capable of attracting reprisal from the military.
He said, “The military’s threat to retaliate with a fierce response and to bring ‘overwhelming military pressure on the group to ensure their total defeat’ is of a fact, in order but it is a threat with potential of engendering a humanitarian crisis if the retaliation turns out to be occupational, indiscriminate and unrestricted.
“News from Aba and its environ is scary as youths and young men are reported to have started deserting the area for the fear of their lives. Meanwhile, the perpetrators must have most certainly fled from the area leaving the innocent and the vulnerable at the mercy of the military.”
He, therefore, urged the military to deploy more intelligence gathering in identifying the culprits, and root them out, warning that any onslaught against the citizens by way of abduction or extra judicial extermination will be regrettable.
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