Chris Mamman
What led to the crisis in Alakyio village and could it not have been handled in a peaceful manner?
Ombatse is the traditional deity
of Eggon people. We have the paramount ruler of the Eggon nation and we
also have a local chief of Alakyio who attends security meetings in
Lafia. We also have the ECDA, Lafia branch and we also have the national
ECDA. All these are avenues the police or government could have used,
but they chose to mischievously arrest a 76-year-old man that can hardly
walk 200 metres. The man’s business is not criminal in nature. He takes
care of sick persons including psychiatric patients from all states. At
any point in time, if you visit the man’s compound, you will have
between 50 and 60 patients. I don’t know if helping the community or a
state in that magnitude is criminal.
Are you saying there are no criminals in Eggonland?
This is not to say we don’t have
miscreants among the Eggon. That is not what I am saying; we have
miscreants in all the tribes of the world. I know that we have a few
miscreants. The Eggon traditional deity has nothing to do with what
happened at Alakyio on May 7. As far as the people of the community are
concerned, what they saw was an invading group. Seventy per cent of the
people in that locality had never seen mobile policemen before. The
State Security Service team that went as an advance party were engaged
in discussions with the community members and they could hardly
understand them until the mobile police team came and started shooting.
The vehicles had not even stopped when the mobile policemen jumped down
and started firing. They were firing in the air, using tear gas and they
also had grenades.
Do you mean that the people retaliated against the attack on them by the security team?
Of course! The police were the ones that
started killing our own people; the police were the aggressors. The
Alakyio community did not go to any police station. It is also criminal
for anybody in the media to refer to Eggon people as cult members or
terrorists because terrorists normally would go to somebody’s domain.
The Eggon people have never attacked any police station. They have
neither attacked worshippers in any church nor attacked any government’s
agency. These are the things terrorists do. Ombatse is completely against violence.
So, how did the situation in Alakyio village get out of control when the police got there?
The police had already killed some
persons before the villagers ran back home, got their sticks and
cutlasses, and attacked the police. The policemen who survived would
attest to the fact that Eggon people went home, brought out cutlasses
and firewood which they used to attack them. If you had gone there
(Alakyio) four or five days ago, you would have seen what I’m talking
about; you would have seen pieces of wood on the ground. Now, the Ombatse group is not domiciled in Alakyio, it is the high priest that lives there. The group is spiritual but the leaders of Ombatse are well known. The governor has met with them before. The security agencies know them and they know that Ombatse had nothing to do with what they are talking about. The Ombatse
leadership has nothing to do with violence; they actually preach
against violence. They (police) had a problem with the villagers and 21
of those villagers were killed in the process, but nobody is talking
about that.
The governor said the police were
deployed in the village because some people were forcibly asked to take
oath of allegiance to Ombatse…
Since it was a traditional matter, then
they should have told the chief that there are some miscreants and the
law enforcement agencies should have invited the people involved.
If the chief priest (Baba Alakyio) was invited by the police, would he have gone voluntarily?
Of course, he would. He is a good citizen of this country. He is not a criminal and I don’t think he has any criminal record.
President-General of Eggon Cultural Development Association, Chris Mamman
PUNCH
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