Coastreporter: ANIOMA YOUTH LEADER PENS STRONG OPEN LATER TO GOV. OKOWA ON HERDSMEN KILLINGS.

4/28/20, 11:02 AM

ANIOMA YOUTH LEADER PENS

STRONG OPEN LATER TO GOV.
OKOWA ON HERDSMEN KILLINGS.

Coastreporters

AN OPEN LETTER TO SEN. DR. IFEANYI OKOWA, THE EXECUTIVE

GOVERNOR OF DELTA STATE*

Your Excellency
Sen. Dr. Ifeanyi A. Okowa
Executive Governor of Delta state
Osadebe House, Asaba.
26th April, 2020.

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Coastreporter: ANIOMA YOUTH LEADER PENS STRONG OPEN LATER TO GOV. OKOWA ON HERDSMEN KILLINGS. 4/28/20, 11:02 AM

Dear Sir,

*STEM THE RISING GENOCIDE IN ANIOMA LAND*

I am constrained to write you through this open medium with the hope that
it is the fastest means it can get to you considering the exigency of the
reason behind this letter.

I am certain that you are in a very good health of mind and body especially
with the pressure of the fight against the scourging Coronavirus pandemic
that is ravaging the entire planet Earth. To this end, I wish you the best of
health to enable you concentrate and work hard to contain and curtail the
further spread of the virus in our dear state but while not losing sight of
other responsibilities saddled on you as the Chief Executive Officer of this
state.

Sir, I will try as much as possible to make this letter as brief as it could be
and devoid of all forms of irrelevancies but if it takes longer than expected
to be able to pass my message, I will regrettably do so.

Your Excellency, I am a Deltan and I owe this state the responsibility of not
only voting for those that will lead or govern me like every other Deltan, but
am also duty bound to engage you and other of our elected or appointed
office holders and public servants when the need arises. Behold the
greatest need to do so has arisen.

It is an unarguable fact that Deltans chose you as the first among equals
initially in 2015 and reposed that same faith in you in 2019 out of the
conviction that you have the requisite experience to govern Deltans by
protecting both their lives and properties while also creating an enabling

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Coastreporter: ANIOMA YOUTH LEADER PENS STRONG OPEN LATER TO GOV. OKOWA ON HERDSMEN KILLINGS. 4/28/20, 11:02 AM

environment for us all to thrive and prosper.

However, without sounding immodest, this area of protecting the lives of

Deltans seem to be the most visible downward curve of your administration.
The killings and maiming of our people have reached its crescendo and as
such, requires your attention through all ways possible just to stem the tide.

As a matter of fact, sometime in 2018, ritual killings almost became a norm

in our dear state. That was the season that Miss Ogege of Delsu Abraka
was kidnapped from her school premises and gruesomely murdered among
other similar ones. It took a clarion call from the Anioma Youth Forum
Worldwide for you to rise up to your constitutional responsibilities in the
area of securing our lives and properties which prompted you to act swiftly
by giving the state commissioner of police a marching order which
consequently gave Deltans a breath of fresh air.

This time around, its a different kind of killings that we now witness.
Suspected herdsmen have turned our land and people into a feasting
ground. Isele Azagba and its people no longer sleep with their two eyes
closed at night neither do they now move freely as freeborns during the
day. They have become endangered species as no week passes by now
without reported cases of killings and butchering of our people in their
houses, on the roads and in their farms.

Nonetheless, this ugly and unacceptable scenario is not limited to Isele

Azagba alone. From Ezi where those of us in the Cities and our families in
the Village have been disconnected due to the rampaging criminal
herdsmen lurking freely on our roads forcing us to abandon any idea of
visiting home or those at home coming to the cities. The story is same in
Umunede, Ashaka, Olona and all over Anioma. The narrative is that of

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Coastreporter: ANIOMA YOUTH LEADER PENS STRONG OPEN LATER TO GOV. OKOWA ON HERDSMEN KILLINGS. 4/28/20, 11:02 AM

sorrow, tears and blood in the hands of these marauders who bestride our
lands like Colosus and like the Lion that owns the jungle.

Just last Thursday 23rd April, few weeks or so after the Okpanam killings, 2
Anioma and Isele Azagba sons were gruesomely murdered yet again while
none of these assailants had ever to the best of my knowledge been
arrested or tried and punished to deter others.

Your Excellency, with all these that are happening, it will be difficult to resist
accepting the notion in some quarters that there is a grand plot by these
herders to kill as many of our people as possible and by extension, instil fear
in the minds of those alive with the sole aim to forcefully conquer us and
possess our land that is very rich and fertile for Agriculture. Outside this,
there might as well be some other hidden agendas that still beats our
imaginations till date.

Ekwueme Sir, I am most worried as a Leader of one of the most viable youth
groups in Anioma and Delta state at large. We can no longer fold our arms
and watch our youths, mothers and fathers fall like chickens on their God
given soil. No. Its an abomination. We therefore appeal to you to use your
good office and powers to do all that is necessary to end this madness and
suspected ethnic cleansing. We are not cowards and might be forced to
take our destinies in our own hands and defend our land and people.

Moreover, it is quite unfortunate that while our people are hiding in their
houses in a bid to evade death through the dreaded coronavirus, these
enemies and intruders have continued in their evil agendas. This calls for
serious concern and must no longer be handled with kid gloves. All
necessary Arsenals must be unleashed if these must stop.

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Ironically Sir, I have seen and read in the news how some of your colleagues
when faced with similar predicaments do not hesitate to run to the CinC,
right from the Obasanjo era to GEJ and now PMB seeking for all available
aids to fight and cleanse their states but in our own case, I have never read
of your attempt to draw the President's attention to the plight of your
people over this ugly situation in Delta state. Sir, without mincing words, we
sure need that help now to save our people. Your people sir.

Consequently sir, the need for you to act has become more necessary now
that the entire world economy has crumbled and our National mainstay, the
crude oil has nose dived almost into a negative digit. To this end, as
envisaged by President Muhammadu Buhari, nothing but agriculture will
henceforth be our sustaining power until the world finds its feet in a post
coronavirus economy.

But sir, with this genocide going on now against our people, how then do
we align and take advantage of the agricultural revolution of the President
especially now that it is the only alternative to self and national survival
when our farmers have all abandoned their farmlands for fear of being
attacked and killed.

Furthermore Sir, knowing fully well that security is the responsibility of both
the government and its Citizens, I had come up with a well detailed strategy
that will help mitigate and curtail the excesses of these monsters and drive
them out of Anioma and back to where they came from.

This strategy was publicly presented by my humble self on behalf of AYFW

during a solution seeking meeting between the Anioma Traditional Rulers
Council and critical stakeholders which included the LGA Council Chairmen
sometime ago at the Palace of the Obi of Owa, HRH Obi Ifeizomor II to end

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Coastreporter: ANIOMA YOUTH LEADER PENS STRONG OPEN LATER TO GOV. OKOWA ON HERDSMEN KILLINGS. 4/28/20, 11:02 AM

the menace. That presentation drew the applause from all and sundry in
that meeting but to our greatest surprise, it wasn't contained in the
communique issued at the end of the meeting for government to tinker
with.

However, not discouraged, we were already making efforts to engage the

state house of assembly to further push through the proposal before the
outbreak of the pandemic which has since forced everybody into their
homes as the lockdown subsists. This strategy will be made available once
we have all been able to defeat the Coronavirus in our dear state in
particular and Nigeria at large.

Thank you very much as I anticipate that we will see a stronger fight against
these assailants and their accomplices across the state in line with the
mandate reposed on you.

Please Sir, accept my highest regards.

*Comrade Nnamdi O. Ofonye*

*National President*
*Anioma Youth Forum Worldwide*
26th April, 2020.

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