Posted by The Port Harcourt Telegraph on
Soldiers have shot and killed three youths from Fouchee in the Degema Local Government Area.
Soldiers have shot and killed three youths from Fouchee in the Degema Local Government Area.
The youths were killed after soldiers moved into the area Thursday allegedly on the orders of the council chairman, Mr. Tony Philermon.
Local sources in Fouchee say the deceased, three of them, were thrown into the river after they met their untimely death.
From what is known, the soldiers were supposed to be on a mission to flush out cultists in Bakana.
How the soldiers eventually ended up in Fouchee which shares boundary with Bakana remains a mystery to the local people.
But the people allege that Philermon may have used his position to settle what they claim are old scores.
Philermon might want everyone to believe he hails from Bakana. Fouchee people claim that he hails from the Iboroma group of houses in Fouchee.
Information at our disposal show that his maternal section of Fouchee (Iboroma polo) has had a long running battle with the rest of Fouchee who hail from Odome polo.
So bad is the relationship, which we here exists, that the squabble over the land that has allegedly led Iboroma polo to align with Bakana, with the people of the polo who are said to be from Fouchee saying they are from Bakana.
The people of Odome polo claim that for failing to support them in a matter over a piece of Bakana and for which Iboroma polo decided to claim Bakana citizenship, there has been serious bad blood.
They further claim that as a result of the fued, the council chairman, Tony Philermon has allegedly refused to date to issue Fouchee people with local government identification slips.
Despite the discrimination that they suffer, the Fouche people say they are happy with the State government.
According to them while the Degema Local Government has over the decades, there is evidence of state presence in the siting of projects, including a primary school.
Yet, as the dust of the military operation ends and three sons of Fouchee lie dead, the people still wonder why no cultist was found in Bakana torn by internal crisis, and why no cultist was found in Iboroma where the soldiers came from.