another odi

When I was first told of the atrocities being perpetrated by members of the Task Force on Pipeline Vandalisation in Delta state, I waved it aside.

There was no way I could have believed what I was being told: that the military chaps, especially the mobile policemen, are running rampage over the villages where pipeline vandalisation and indeed, pipeline leakages, has occurred in recent times. How was I to believe that they have left chasing substance and are instead chasing shadows? How was I to believe that old men and women are being stripped and flogged? How indeed was I to believe that almost whole villages were being set ablaze?

A lot may be wrong with this nation, but how was I to believe that the few properties found in the mud houses, home to old widows and past-their-prime old men, are gathered together in the centre of their huts where they are set ablaze? The reason for this, I was told, is that either their children or grand children were suspected to be those who go to scoop fuel from burst pipes, or that as little as four litres of petrol is found in, or near their buildings.

The Task Force men immediately constitute themselves into the accuser and the judge. Such buildings are sentenced to torching, and koboko lashes are cris- crossed over their bodies. Some youths, I was further told, have also been summarily executed. We are not at war, or are we? To confirm that what I was being told was not the truth, I sent first Neville Amorighoye, one of our reporters at Warri to go round the villages and take photographs. He did and sent me 18 photographs. Next I contacted our zonal bureau head at Benin and asked him to tour the affected villages.

Finally, I asked another of our reporters, Uwakwe Abugu, to go round again and talk to the affected persons. He went a bit further and spoke also with PPMC officials and some of the Task Force personnel. Just last week too, the Ag Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Honourable Pius Ewherido, led members of the house on a fact finding tour of these villages and they were thoroughly aghast at what they saw. They have since voiced their condemnation of these atrocities, these violation of the rights of the poor villagers, while asking that the federal government call the Task Force to order.

On my part, I have made telephone calls to some of the prominent sons from those areas, and they all confirm my worst fear: the vice president's threat to the governors of the south-south zone, that they either curtail the activities of the pipeline vandals or military venom will be visited on their states has since come to pass in Adeje, Ibada-Elume, Egborode, and the surrounding villages.

Yet it must bear restating: the old men and women whose houses are being burnt, who are being flogged and whose daughters and wives are being raped, are not the mafia behind the multi-million naira pipeline vandalisation in a place like Delta State. Indeed, like it has been proven, the locals do not have the technology to do hot or even cold tapping of the pipelines. They are not the owners of the barges and the fuel tankers which are used to steal the oil. Yes, the youths are guilty of going to scoop fuel when the big time operators get careless and a spill occurs.

But like Governor James Ibori noted some time ago, these are just jobless, hungry youths who see a successful scooping of a 10 or 20 litre jerry can as a ticket to their next meal. The Task Force had better go after the real culprits who I dare say are well known to the police, the navy and other security forces in Delta State, nay the Niger Delta. They must stop acting tough on defenseless villagers.