A national interest group, Nigeria’s Peace and Development Advocates (NPDA), has roundly condemned the gruesome murder of 17 soldiers in Okuama community of Delta state, saying the act was tantamount to declaring war on the Nigerian nation.
Irked by the ungodly development, the leadership of NPDA, Hon. Chukwunonye Okereke, national coordinator and Barr. Forster Ugwuoke, secretary respectively, called on the federal government to declare a state of emergency on any territory that wittingly or unwittingly takes up arms against the Nigerian state.
The group believed that the killing of the soldiers was orchestrated, masterminded and sponsored by some highly placed individuals who could be enjoying government immunity because of their lofty positions.
They posited that such criminal act should not go unpunished in order to deter others from standing up to the state in future.
“We therefore, cannot allow the president and the Nigerian state to be intimidated and reduced to a banana republic where people who enjoy the instrument of power are using their resources to intimidate the state.
“So if non-state actors or other pseudo usurpers are allowed unfettered control on Nigerian territories to continually mete such criminality on Nigerians and worse still, the Nigerian military, then Nigeria is as good as gone.
“The fact that wanted culprits are reportedly taking refuge in Government Houses, particularly Governor’s lodge has sent the Nigeria’s Peace and Development Advocates worrying as it points to the direction from where the war drum sounds.
“It is our understanding that the immunity provided by the constitution in section 308 is not an immunity against the state and does not absolve anyone who declares war against the state of Nigeria. Therefore the immunity of a person in office does not operate against the sovereign integrity of the federal Republic of Nigeria. What happened in Okuama community on the 14th of March, 2024, was an unprovoked act of war against the state of Nigeria and a violation of her sovereignty,” the group laments.
Reading a communique on Wednesday at Best Western Hotel, Enugu on behalf of the group, the national coordinator and the secretary asked President Bola Tinubu to take decisive action on the unbecoming act.
“Therefore, this time and era beckons on the Commander-in-Chief of Nigerian Armed Forces to rise to the occasion and assert the sovereign authority of the Nigerian state to instill sanity in our polity,” he said.