A Principal member of Omadino community council of elders, Mr. Roland Yomere in this interview speaks on the perceived challenges faced by the Itsekiri ethnic nationality from personnel of Tantita Security Services and called on them to wake up from their slumber.
Excerpt:
First let me address the issue of the abduction of some itsekiri indigenes about three (3) months ago by members of the Tantita security company at Usor community in the Benin river axis of Warri kingdom.
These persons where allegedly abducted and detained in their private cells at Oporaza community for no reason even though they have now been released and have received treatment at the general hospital Sapele for general check up.
In these acts of brazen and reckless display of power, some Itsekiri persons proposed a conference to address this challenge posed by Tantita security members of indiscriminate attack and arrest to draw the attention of all relevant authorities to this menace and aberration and perhaps chat the way forward to avoid another Ijaw/Itsekiri crisis in Delta state.
This press conference was spearheaded by a Warri based legal practitioner, Chief Robinson Ariyo, but very surprisingly another group of Itsekiri persons allegedly led by one former Itsekiri National Youth President, Barrister Esimaje Awani disrupted and aborted the conference. He was alleged to have stormed the venue of proposed conference with some mobile policemen.
To me, it’s the rights of the conference organisers hold it to express their views to the government and the general public.
I have decided in my private capacity as a thoroughly concerned and disturbed Itsekiriman to lend my voice in support of the objective and aims of the aborted conference and hereby call on all well meanings Itsekiri’s at home and in the diaspora to join me in this crusade to caution Tantita Security Services and its personnel from any further illegal attack on itsekiri communities, abduction and detention of our indigenes so as to put a stop to this nefarious activities in Itsekiri land.
It is my candid opinion that enough is enough of this Tantita shenanigans. Itsekiri must come out in their large numbers and protest against it in every way possible.
Let me put it on record that a few months ago also some Omadino indigenes living in their various villages or communities around Gbaramatu kingdom who were driven away from these communities during the Warri crisis by Ijaw militants with sophisticated arms were attacked, detained and driven back thereby preventing them from returning to their villages.
It is therefore my clarion call and appeal to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Chief Sheriff Oborevwori, the governor of Delta state, the National Security adviser, NSA,and the heads of all the security agencies to step into this abnormality being executed by Tantita against the itsekiri people.
What the Tantita Security Services personnel are doing in our waterways and villages amounts to using the Federal government security agents to prosecute the territorial expansionist agenda of the Gbaramatu Ijaw to grab lands belonging to itsekiri people.
Their aim is to ensure the extinction of the itsekiri people from the face of the earth. And this will never be allowed to happen. So Itsekiri people must rise up to this guagmire through massive protests in all social/mainstream media platforms.
As it is, it should be pointed out that we are all sitting on a keg of gunpowder in this axis of the Niger region.
It is indeed very painful and sad that a bonafide Itsekiri man in the person of Barr. Esimaje Awani would collude with other Itsekiri folks to disorganize a conference of such monumental importance in Itsekiri land.
Let me state clearly here that well meaning itsekiri youths will not tolerate his misadventure and inordinate audacity in warri kingdom anymore. Because he works with Tantita does not afford him the express freedom to ride roughshod on the collective Itsekiri interest.
He should not equate his private interest as that of the totality of Itsekiri people. One would have thought that if Tantita engages in wrong doings in Itsekiri land, he should be bold enough to sit them down and tell them to their face that these actions are oppressive and not acceptable to his people.
It is the height of callousness and unbridled greed for him to collude with Tantita to wreck havoc on Itsekiri rights and privileges because of his stomach infrastructure pursuit.
Let it also be on record that the Itsekiri people are very accommodating, remain peace loving and law abiding. That however is not to say that they are afraid of any persons, groups or tribe because we have seen it all, and nobody, group or ethnic militia should try to provoke us into unnecessary and unwarranted war.
We shall not be intimidated in our own homeland neither shall we allow our Crown to be intimidated also. This Esimaje Awani has exposed himself as a prodigal son.
It is on record that he and some others had at a time stated that some of these persons so abducted by Tantita personnel were engaged in pipeline vandalism and he does not appear to have respect for the palace or the Olu of Warri. I
My take here is that Itsekiri’s must not sit idle by in their private homes, murmuring and gnashing their teeth over Tantita’s unbecoming activities in the itsekiri axis and expect Government to fight their cause for them.
