RIVERS State Governor, Celestine Omehia, at the weekend explained that the murder of three chiefs and discovery of decapitated human heads and female bodies were responsible for the presence of the Joint Task Force (JTF) in Ogbogoro, near Port Harcourt.
And despite pressure from ethnic organisations like the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, Ijaw National Congress and the Wakirike Ethnic Nationality Survival Organisation, the governor said there was no going back on the planned demolition and transformation of the waterfronts.
Omehia stated this at a state banquet held at the Government House, Port Harcourt to mark his administration’s first 100 days in office. In attendance were chiefs, government officials and other eminent persons in the state.
According to the governor, all government’s efforts would amount to nothing if cultism which threatens internal security is not decisively tackled.
His words: “We have today taken over Ogbogoro and from what we saw, only God knows how people who live there manage. When JTF took over Ogbogoro, skulls were
discovered in different parts of the place, dead women without breasts, corpses floating on water, hands and legs tied.”
Omehia stressed that it was the sole responsibility of government to protect life and property, adding that “it is pertinent to warn again that this government is against cultism and frowns at criminality. As it is now, this state is free from cultism.”
He explained that the on-going clampdown on cultists would continue because their destructive activities were antithetical to the development objectives of his government.
He reiterated that government’s decision to impose a nine-hour curfew beginning from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Port Harcourt and its environs was necessitated by the desire to continue to consolidate on the gains of the relative peace achieved so far.
He added that the indefinite curfew had to stay even if it meant extending it.
Omehia said he was ready to grant amnesty to any cultist who openly and genuinely renounced cultism and violence. He, however, warned that the government would not fail to clamp down on those who fail to denounce violence.
He lauded President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and the security chiefs for their commitment to the restoration of peace in Port Harcourt and the entire state.
He also thanked them for discarding the clamour for the imposition of state of emergency on the state.