By Our Correspondent, Warri
In continuation of what seems to be a siege on the indigenous Itsekiri inhabitants of Ologbo land in Edo state, the foot soldiers of the Enogie, Saturday morning allegedly shot one Itsekiri youth in an unprovoked attack on the community.
In the alleged shooting which took place at about 1: am Saturday morning at the entrance into Ologbo, in between two military post of less than 150metres away, Julius Urenye left ankle was shattered with the AK47 while his stomach was opened up with the pump action riffle to ensure that he died so as to foreclose any evidence about the perpetrators of the gruesome inhuman act.
Speaking with newsmen on his hospital bed, Julius who was doing community policing with some others said when they saw a Hilux van approaching their community, he went to see who they were, only to discover three men who he alleged were Onogie boys of Ologbo.
According to him, “I immediately shouted to my brothers to run away. Blacky was the one that shot me in the leg. When I went down, another one came and shoot me in the stomach. After that they drove away. The military men at the two posts near the scene did nothing to help me. I started shouting until our boys came to rescue me to the police station where I made my statements before I was rushed to the hospital”, he revealed.
Julius is currently recuperating from the gunshot injuries after a successful surgery operations and called on the relevant authorities to prosecute the perpetrators of the heinous crime.
Efforts to speak with the Ologbo Police DPO proved abortive as his line was not going through.
It would be recalled that the same Enogie boys disrupted the Itsekiri Ologbo yearly cultural festival last December 31st 2021 with violence, killing an aged woman and destroying the DPOs operational van in the process.
Speaking to newsmen on the current shooting, the Iyatsere of Warri Kingdom, Chief Johnson Amatsereuleghe said he would petition the relevant authorities to seek redress as they are the owners and aborigines of Ologbo community saying, “we are not settlers or stranger elements here. This is our community. Its boundary adjustment that brought us under Edo state. We are Itsekiris under the Olu of Warri in Delta state from origin and are not prepared to cede an inch of our God given land to anybody by God’s grace, he stated.
Chief Johnson further alleged the crisis in Ologbo is being engineered by some selfish Itsekiri persons who visit the Enogie every now and then to perpetrate these unwarranted troubles for Ologbo community to score some political goals at the detriment of the entire Itsekiri nation.
