- By Halimah Olamide
The Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi has condemned the reprisal attacks on Okuama community where some men of the Nigerian Army were killed on Saturday.
Obi said he was woken up to the disturbing report of attacks on the community where some hoodlums laid ambush for soldiers, killing them. President Bola Tinubu has given a presidential order to the Chief of Defence Staff to fish out the killers. In a series of tweets on his verified X handle, Obi said two wrongs wont be equal to a right adding that the action of those who sought to bring the community down is wrong-headed.
“The act remains censured and accursed by all right thinking Nigerians. However, the emerging disturbing reports of the community being under arson attack is equally unpalatable and wrong headed,” Obi said in his tweet. While joining other Nigerians in condemning in the strongest terms, what he called “the mindless killing of security personnel who were on a peacekeeping mission in a community in Delta state,” Obi said as painful as the act may be, he would like to appeal to the security agencies to be considerate and avoid transferring their anger to hapless members of the community. “I have also learnt that the Government of Delta State, had been on top of this situation before it escalated.
He said, “The act remains censured and accursed by all right thinking Nigerians. However, the emerging disturbing reports of the community being under arson attack is equally unpalatable and wrong headed. In all situations, two wrongs cannot produce a right. Reprisal arson attacks on the community cannot compensate for the original wrong of the killing of the soldiers. It is most likely that innocent lives will be lost in these reprisal attacks and innocent citizens who had no hand in the ugly crimes, may be rendered homeless by the wanton destruction of the community. “The correct and civilized thing to do is to put all machinery in place to apprehend the real perpetrators of the original ignoble act and bring them to book.”