Daily Independent Online.
*
Monday,July 19, 2004.
Eight killed in
military action
•Ateke
surrenders arms, flees Okrika
BY Odudu Okpongete
Reporter, Port Harcourt
After a military action on Tuesday morning
at Amadi-Ama area in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, no fewer than eight persons
mostly teenagers lay dead and two soldiers seriously injured.
Also, combat-ready troops on Thursday took
over Okrika Island in a move by the state government to flush out militants
from the area. Soldiers had earlier taken over Buguma in similar efforts last
May to dislodge another militia leader, Asari Dokubo.
The move came just as the militia leader
that had controlled the area, Mr. Ateke Tom, surrendered arms to monarchs in
Okrika and fled to an unknown destination.
The Army Public Relations Officer at the
Bori Camp Barrack, Captain Onyema Kanu, confirmed the killings on Saturday,
saying the operation led to the recovery of arms, including six automatic
rifles.
The officer also denied claims that the
arms recovered last week from a prominent militia leader in the state were
bought from soldiers but he gave no clues as to how the arms got into the hands
of the militiamen
The state Information Commissioner, Mr.
Magnus Abe, had said last Wednesday that the arms recovered from the leader of
the militia had the inscriptions of the military on them.
More details emerged at the weekend that
soldiers were not just called in to help mop-up arms in the area.
Military sources said soldiers went into
the area following a mid-morning attack on Amadi-Ama by a group of boys
allegedly loyal to their leader, Ateke. The militants reportedly invaded the
area around 3.30a.m.
When the soldiers arrived, sources added,
the militants were forced to retreat although others claimed a vigilante
defending the community put up the resistance.
But a community source claimed that the
soldiers looted some property and that two persons in army uniforms were killed
but could not confirm whether they were actually impostors or soldiers.
Sources at Okrika Island said immediately
the troops took over the island they seized the torture camp of the militia
leader.
The militia leader, Ateke, sources added,
had been under intense pressure from Okrika monarchs and the government to turn
in the arms in his possession in exchange for an amnesty allegedly offered by
Governor Peter Odlili to cult and militia men.
During the surrender of his arms to
monarchs in the area at the Okrika Market square, Ateke and his group were said
to have returned 37 guns ranging from Ak 47 rifles, pump action guns, one
rocket launcher, ground machine gun and locally made dane guns. There were
also188 live ammunition, 77 cartridges and some raps of dynamites.
On the occasion, Ateke was said to have
boasted that he never owned a gun that he used in killing his rivals except his
mystery stick that he later handed over to the Amanyanabo of Okrika.
“Everybody in
Okrika knows I don’t have a gun. All I have is but a mystical stick,
which I used to kill them. Now I will submit that stick. Therefore, having
submitted this stick, anybody who has anything, any gun in Okrika should bring
it out,” Ateke was quoted as having said.
