Rivers boat shooting incident: Ijaw urges probe of erring soldiers

Ijaw People’s Development Initiative (IPDI), a rights group, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari, Chief of Army Staff and Inspector General of Police to urgently investigate the killing of Ijaw citizens by soldiers, who opened fire on a commercial transport local boat at Bonny, Rivers State, last Thursday.

The group in a statement by its national president, Comrade Ozobo Austin, said: “The shooting was another effort by the Nigerian state to eliminate peace-loving Ijaw people in Rivers state and smacks of extra-judicial execution.

“On no account should military authority use helicopter bought with Niger Delta oil money to aggressively destroy Ijaw people, who produce the bulk of the oil that sustains the Nigerian state. The perpetrators would not go Scott free.

“Ijaw people and Niger Delta youths have been provoked by the barbaric shooting, the incident if not properly investigated and addressed, could spark outrage in the region. The people of Niger Delta and Ijaw, in particular, are beginning to lose confidence in the Nigerian military that has been reduced to the whims and caprices of dictators and oppressors in other divides of the country.

“We demand justice and call on President Buhari, Chief of Army Staff to not only unravel the cause of the shooting but punish the erring soldiers to serve as a deterrent for the lives lost in the ill-fated incident,” the group said.

(Vanguard)