Abraka Youths To New DPO: Stay Away From Politics, Subjectiveness, Gossip If You Must Succeed

By Daniel Dafe

Youths in Abraka, Ethiope East Local Government of Delta State, have advised the new Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Abraka Division, SP Fabian Ayameh, to stay away from politics, subjectiveness, refrain from listening to gossip and those who’s stock in trade is act as go between to secure bail for criminals in the name of activism if he must succeed in the community.

Speaking to Oasis Magazine (OM) exclusively on Wednesday, President of Oruarivie-Abraka Youth Council (OYC), Worldwide and the Onoturede, Comrade Efe Don Kigho, who spoke on behalf of the youths, added that the new DPO must “get facts right before he acts.”

Adding: “He must respect traditionally constituted authority, (na people get the land ).”

He continued: “He must regard them, because without these, he cannot succeed. He will do far better and write his name in gold if he listens objectively and acts as a police officer and not like a politician. If not, he will not be sent forth like many of those that have gone”.

“He must have zero tolerance for drugs; law enforcement agents are conspiring with drug dealers to destroy our community and it’s not acceptable! He should pursue constructive engagement on cultism and not always using force. Let me tell you this, in Asaba area, Ogwashi Uku, Obiaruku, Oghara, they have been fighting and killing. Before I came in, there were cutting heads in Abraka. There was war between the cult groups but when I came in, all those things stopped. It was not through force. Do you know how I succeeded? I removed the secret from it. I was dealing with cultists.”

According to him, “the government and the police have refused to remove secret, so they are dealing with secret cults. When you are dealing with secret cult it is more difficult than when you are dealing with cult. You remove the secrecy by engaging people; you bring them and talk with them. They know you, you know them. They should develop this model. I spoke about this in Asaba sometime ago and they applauded it. A very respected and responsible dignitary and senior officer was there and said they have not seen someone who has better understanding on the matter. We will soon do implementation with Abraka as a case study.

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“Cult issue in a University community cannot be ruled out but can be handled it in such a way that you will not hear any squabbles from them. These he must do and then the crime rate must be brought down. He must work with the host community, the king as the head of it and the youths, vigilante (and not the scam they are calling Anticult in Abraka); there should be collaboration. Anything short of that, he is going to fail.”

Asked if his opinion on how to deal with cultism will not support rather than deal with it, he said that his solution is to engage them and gradually fade it out.

Speaking further, he said: “I have met with some of their leaders. They have squads in secondary schools. The people that are doing the killings are the small children, people who don’t know what life is. They have infiltrated these children. They take advantage of their youthful exuberance and use them to carry out their killings. I spoke with some of their representatives and ask them how will you feel if your children are initiated in secondary school? They all replied same way (by saying) ” God forbid, nobi me oo”. So I said, stop the initiation of these children and they agreed.”

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“We will set up a taskforce and Oasis magazine will be involved for the media coverage. We will go to the schools. For instance, Ethiope school will be given to Church of God Mission. We have four government schools we will go to government schools before we go to private, each school to one church. Pastors like Pastor Ogwezi or Pastor Daniel will handle one. We will request counselors from DELSU for each school. Other people including community leaders, teachers and NGOs will be involved. We will engage them for specific period (say two weeks or so); address them in the assembly, talk to them in the classes and privately, identify and encourage them to renounce. We will get political office holders involved, so those who are renouncing will be given some form of encouragement, maybe scholarships or stuffs like that.

“Then after the deadline, those who fail to renounce will face justice.

“So by the time we are doing this, we have removed the secret. Then we will deal with the few cults that are left. After, we will gradually engage them. What makes it violent is superiority tussle but when rival groups see themselves in engagement meetings, it becomes less aggressive and with time they will lose interest.”

On anti-cult activities in the community, he said the present anti cult should be scrapped, saying that the community should pick people with integrity and set up another anti-cult as the present one as constituted is a scam.