A group, Forest Soldiers (FS) otherwise known as ‘Isaac Adaka Boro Last Born’ has sent warning signals to the Department of State Services, (DSS), Military and other security agents to shelve the planned military attacks on Ishawo, Arepo, Abule Oba and other communities along the Lagos, Ogun states riverine areas.
The group said it has noted the heavy presence of military personnel and DSS operatives in operation vans and armoured personnel carriers in the Arepo area since Saturday, apparently battle ready to launch attacks on the area as
reprisal of the alleged September 16 killing of seven operatives of DSS at Konu, a border between Arepo in Ogun State and Ikorodu, Lagos State.
The group which comprises Ijaw ex-militants from Ese-Odo council area of Ondo state and their counterparts from Bayelsa, Rivers, Edo, Lagos, Ogun and other Niger-Delta states noted that any attack, either on land or from air along the Arepo/Ikorodu creeks and watersides would lead to the killing of many innocent people, including women and children.
The group therefore, reiterated its call to the security agencies to look for the killers of their men elsewhere, as it denied involvement in the killing which attracted military bombardment of the area in search of the missing men.
In an anonymous telephone call to DAILY POST by the spokesman of the group on Sunday, Akon Obukogban, the Forest
Soldiers said the sin of members of the group was being oil bunkers in the creeks of Arepo after failed attempts to embrace and get listed in the Federal Government Amnesty programme since 2010.
Obukogban said many of it members were forced out of their homes and families in Arogbo area of Ondo State by an unnamed ex-militant lord in the state to monopolies bunkering business in the state.
“We even tried to get enlisted in the 3rd phase of the Amnesty Programme of the Federal Government during former President Goodluck Jonathan regime under the chairmanship of our
brother and former Special Adviser, Kingsley Kuku, but all to no avail.
“That was when we decided to relocate to the creeks in Arepo and environs; but the Lagos state government has continued to make life more difficult for us, using security agents to terrorise us and tagged us with many criminal activities in the area.
“Many of us were killed by security operatives inside the creeks, as we lost about ten of our men in a recent attack on our creeks. We are daily living in fear and untold agony.”
Obukogban noted that the group has been playing big brother role to their landlords and residents of the area by protecting them from the hands of cultists who had been vandalising, kidnapping, stealing and killing even before the Forest Solders take refuge in the area.
He said by the account of the September 16 incident at Ishawo area of Ikorodu, members of the group couldn’t have been involved in the land operation that led to the killing of DSS operatives since the activity of the group was confined inside the creeks and not on land where the attack was carried out.
The spokesman also drew the attention of security operatives to the criminal activities of some unnamed cult groupd who had been terrorising the area, while disguising as militants from the creeks.
“These cultists usually terrorise the area, doing all sorts criminal activities; but we always lend our helping
hands to the landlords and residents by counter attacking the cultists and stopping their ungodly acts.
“We have seized many of their guns, including two double barrel guns, while we rescued a military personnel from them sometimes ago and we took the wounded soldier to hospital for
treatment,” Obukogban stated.
He pleaded with President Buhari to look into their plights as promised during campaigns, and offer them amnesty like their fellow ex-militants from the Niger-Delta to enable them leave the creeks and join their kinsmen in their respective towns and villages.
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