Call Your Security Force to Order, Ex-Militants Warn Jonathan

Call Your Security Force to Order, Ex-Militants Warn Jonathan
-Threatened to resume warfare
BY JOSEPH KINGSTON, CALABAR

Ex-militants from the defunct Bakassi Volunteer Force, BVF group, which before now had made the estuaries of the Akpayafe River in Cross River State inaccessible, have called on President Goodluck Jonathan to call Nigerian security force to order, accusing them of deliberate act of aggression.
In a chat with our reporter in their base at Ikot Nakanda, leader of the group, ‘General’Bofa Olorogun said the combined force of the Army, Navy and the Mobile Police had stormed their made shift base and brutally stopped his men from carrying out their “peaceful protest in a democratic setting”.
The former creek fighter explained that the peaceful protest was their only way of registering their dissatisfaction over the handling of their plight since they surrendered their arms to government in the spirit of the amnesty granted Niger Delta militants.
The ‘General’,who spoke through his legal representative, Barr Samuel Okoye said, the essence of the aborted protest was to call the attention of both the State and Federal Government to their plight.
This, he said, was necessary because “after the authority had appealed to us to surrender our arms with a promise of being included in the amnesty programme, government have since turn its back on us.
“Are these guys with guns terrorizing us because we have chosen the path of peace by dropping our own arms? Why are they trying to push us to the wall?, they had vaguely wondered.
The ex-militants thereafter matched around their make shift camp with placards some of which read, ‘We want amnesty’, ‘Give us a chance to live right,’ ‘We are tired of starving and suffering’, ‘BVF is for non-violence’, amongst others.
According to Olorogun, “we laid down our arms in August 4, 2011. We have since written series of letters to the government requesting for their support”, and warned“we will not accept any flimsy excuse”.
He enumerated their demand to include recommendation to the Federal Government for inclusion in the amnesty programme, provision of “proper accommodation over our heads”,availability of monthly stipend to keep body and soul together.
The aborted protest was scheduled to he held in the presence of the campaign train of the erstwhile governor of Cross River State, Senator Liyel Imoke, who led his team to Bakassi to solicit for the vote of the people.
Our reporter who monitored the aborted protest observed the presence of a good number of military men parading the scene earmarked for the protest.