Okuama Killing: Ex-minister Faults Non-state Actors Protecting Oil Facilities

Former minister of communications and chairman of Presidential Review Committee for the General Abisoye Panel on NNPC Reforms, Major General Tajudeen Olanrewaju (rtd) has said non-state actors, who parade themselves as militants, should not be seen around crude oil pipelines in the name of security and protection in Nigeria.

 In a statement signed by his media office, he disclosed that constitutionally recognised military institutions should be well positioned and equipped to do the job through specially trained and strategically built forces like it is done in India and Venezuela.

 Olanrewaju stated this in his reaction to the painful killing of Lt. Col. AH Ali, the Commanding Officer of 181 Amphibious Battalion of the Nigerian Army, Agbor, along with two majors, one captain and 13 other soldiers of the Army by Okuoma youths in Bomadi local government area of Delta State on Thursday,  March 14, 2024.

Olanrewaju’s intervention came on the heels of the event that took place in Okuama.

The former member of the Provisional Ruling Council said, „That event in Okuoma gives me an unsettled mind about events surrounding the nation’s high volumes of oil deposits in Western Delta. The consequences of collateral damages resulting from gang warfare between two warring communities of Okuoma and Okoloba could lead to further serious consequences of collateral damages to our national assets as a result of this unwarranted conflict.

 „I believe strongly that the federal government should reconsider a new security protection template for our oil rich region, not on a piecemeal basis but the entire oil belt in the country.

 „I also have a strong feeling that non-state actors should be called their true identity and not dressed up nicely with a patronising name. They are militants, thugs, hoodlums and are not different from bandits. That is what they are. Their transition has always been from thuggery, militancy to terrorism. That was how Boko Haram started.“

Olanrewaju, a former General Officer Commanding, 3 Armoured Division Nigerian Army, „The Okuoma community‘s land conflict of this nature with its neighbour may signal a new build-up of community warfare that can snowball into a bigger conflict in the region. Who knows? It was Odi, Zaki Biam, now Okuoma and Okoloba. This is a smoldering smoke that must be quenched as quickly as possible. The earlier the federal government steps in quickly and keeps the smoldering smoke down as fast as possible, the better for the oil region.