Security
THE Oghara Study Group (OSG) has urged government at all levels to urgently intervene in the escalating wave of banditry-induced violence, kidnappings, and killings across Oghara, Ethiope West Local Government Area of Delta.
The civic and advocacy platform, made the call at a news conference on Thursday in Oghara.
The conference was convened by the group’s media contacts, Rev. David Ugolor and Prof. Ogheneruonah Eghweree.
Addressing the media, Ugolor said the conference was prompted by the recent attacks, casualty figures and abduction cases reported to it by community informants, vigilante groups, and traditional institution channels.
He decried the recent kidnap incident of a family, where the husband was murdered and his wife released after the payment of a ransom.
According to him, the rising wave of crime has heightened fear across the once-peaceful area.
“What was once regarded as one of Delta’s relatively peaceful communities is increasingly facing organised criminal violence that threatens lives, livelihoods, investments, food security and social cohesion.
“The recent abduction of a husband and wife, the subsequent killing of the husband by his abductors, and release of the wife after ransom payment represent a deeply disturbing deterioration in public security.
“This incident has heightened fear across Oghara and prompted widespread calls for urgent government intervention,” he said.
The convener said that Oghara, which host several oil and gas assets, including tertiary institutions, had in recent years experienced a rising pattern of criminal violence, including banditry, kidnapping-for-ransom, cult-related killings and ritual murders.
He highlighted the pattern of crimes in the area to include: rival cult factions; kidnapping-for-ransom; ritual and cult-linked killings; armed robbery, and cyber crime among others.
He alleged that multiple documented cases of beheadings and stabbings attributed to suspected ritualists and cyber-fraud networks had unsettled residents, including within the Koko Junction and adjacent Western Delta University neighborhood.
Ugolor emphasised that the persistence of banditry-induced violence in the kingdom, reflected a wider failure of coordinated security governance across Nigeria’s federating units, rather than the failure of any single agency.
“We reject any narrative that blames the community for the criminality visited upon it.
“We also call for the recognition of Oghara’s traditional institution and civic structures as legitimate partners and not bystanders in the design and delivery of local security,” he said.
Ugolor expressed commitment to peace, dialogue, and constructive engagement with all tiers of government, security agencies, development partners, and the media to restoring lasting peace to the area.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that when the issue of the abducted family was raised before the Delta Commissioner of Police (CP), Yemi Oyeniyi on Wednesday in Warri, he promised to visit Oghara as soon as possible. (NAN)
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Tags: Delta Group insecurity