By Philip Eke, Yenagoa
Belabiri 11 community in Ekeremor Local Government Area of Bayelsa state is currently embroiled in deadly crisis over who becomes the next Board Chairman of the Global Memorandum of Understanding GMoU between Shell and host communities of Mein Cluster Location.
According to our checks, those deeply involved in the power tussle are four children of one Chief Robert Deboh.
The four waring sons of Chief Deboh include: Mr. Ati Deboh, Mr. Friday Deboh, Mr. Endurance Ebimobowei Deboh and Emmanuel Deboh.
We learnt that out of the four brothers, Emmanuel Deboh is of a different mother while the remaining three are of the same mother.
Our correspondent reports that trouble started in the oil bearing community when one of the brothers, Mr. Ati Deboh who had been Chairman of the Board
of Mein Cluster GMoU for the past ten years, chose his younger brother, Endurance Deboh, who is also the incumbent Community Development Committee CDC chairman of the community, to succeed him.
We gathered that the attempt by the outgoing GMoU Board chairman to have his younger brother succeed him met stiff opposition from his half brother,
Emmanuel Deboh.
The situation, we further gathered, triggered off an alleged assassination attempt on Emmanuel Deboh who narrowly escaped death.
Narrating his ordeal to our correspondent in Yenagoa, Mr. Emmanuel Deboh, who is currently receiving medical treatment in an undisclosed hospital in the state capital said he was firstly rushed to a hospital at Belabiri 1where the Doctors battled to revive him before taken to Yenagoa.
He hinted that peace eluded him the day he opposed his half brother’s plan to make his younger brother succeed him.
Emmanuel alleged that he had been receiving series of threat calls and warnings of assassination because of his position on the matter.
Emmanuel also alleged that Mr. Ati Deboh conspired with few persons in the community and conveyed a secret meeting in Warri, Delta state where they compiled a list of his successors and sent same to Shell Petroleum and
Development Company for inauguration.
He reasoned that his half brothers were allegedly after his life because he wanted due process to be followed and that his position as a youth leader precluded Shell from recognizing and inaugurating the list sent by the outgoing GMoU chairman.
Emmanuel who is a graduate of Building Engineering from the IMO State University of Science and Technology argued that Endurance Deboh being the CDC chairman of the community was not eligible to succeed the GMoU chairman
but could only make recommendations.
His words: “I have been receiving series of threat calls because l
disagreed with my brother to install his biological younger brother to
takeover him.
” On the 14th of April, 2018, my brothers (Ati Deboh, Friday Deboh and Endurance Deboh) and their gang broke into my house around 2:00am with guns and ion rods and dragged me to a nearby bush.
“While they were dragging me out, they said to themselves that they will kill me silently without gun shut so that nobody will hear about it.
” So they gripped my neck and started hitting me with the back of their guns and ion rods with which they succeeded in breaking my head, hands and legs until l became unconscious and they left, thinking that l had died.
Fortunately for me, my step mother who over heard my voice at the initial time now ran to tell my elder sister who then raised the alarm.
My sister whom l had earlier informed about their threat calls quickly ran to Ati Deboh’s house that night to tell him to go and bury my corps but his wife told my sister that her husband was not at home, so she waited until his arrival.
When he arrived, he feigned ignorance of what has happened but he immediately betrayed his complicity when he asked my sister how much it would take to bury me so he could take the responsibility for my burial”.
He called on the Police to call his brothers to order and protect him from further deadly attacks, claiming that
his brothers have been boasting of their connections with security operatives in the state.
When contacted for comment, one of the accused persons simply said “it is a family matter.”
