No fewer than 23 memoranda over the Okuama tragedy have been received as of Thursday by the Committee on Defence of the 10th House of Representatives of Nigeria.
This was disclosed by the chairman of the committee, Hon. Babajimi Benson, on Thursday while briefing journalists at the Governor’s Office Annexe, Warri, Delta State.
The committee, comprising 10 members, including the member representing Ughelli North, Ughelli South, and Udu Federal Constituency in the House, Francis Ejiroghene Waive, is on a fact-finding mission to the state over the gruesome killing of 17 officers and soldiers of the Nigerian Army on March 14, 2024.
Addressing journalists, Benson said the period for the collection of more memoranda has been extended to next Friday in order to allow all aggrieved stakeholders, including the army, to ventilate their positions as regards the tragedy.
He said though they gathered that residents of Okuama were afraid of appearing in public hearings for fear of arrest, they should ensure that their views were translated into memoranda and submitted to the Clerk of the Committee, Hon. Musa Aliyu, who was also in attendance, before next Friday.
He said the committee was poised to bring the Okuama imbroglio to a logical conclusion so that the villagers, who had fled their ancestral homes, could return to a better, reconstructed home.
“We came in yesterday. We met Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, and we told him our mission. We’re here today to see members of the community on camera and by way of memoranda.
“We’ve received a lot of memoranda from them, but they’ve not turned up physically. The window is extended for a week.
“So, we’re still expecting a lot more memoranda from the people of the Okuama community.
“We’ve assured the governor and the people that we have the full backing of the House of Representatives to ensure that this matter is reviewed from both sides and followed to a logical conclusion.
“The community people are scared to come out in view of another list of wanted people being released.
“They have sent in a memorandum, and we’re still giving them a week more to turn in further memoranda in the next one week.
“The clerk of the committee is receiving the memoranda. We’ve dedicated our time to ensuring justice is done and people return to their community, perhaps better than it was before,” Hon. Benson noted.
On whether his committee would visit the Okuama community, which is purported to have been levelled by rampaging soldiers in the wake of the killing, Hon. Benson, representing Ikorodu Federal Constituency in Lagos, said, “We need to be fully armed (with enough information) before we can visit Okuama.”
Earlier, Hon. Waive, under whose constituency Okuama falls, assured the people of the state a fair hearing and justice, urging them to shed off fears and come up and submit their memoranda to the committee.
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