Posted by By Udede Jim on
A measure of hope for peace community living greeted the air on Thursday in Bakana when the chairman of Degema Local Govenrment Area (DELGA), Hon. Tony T. Philmoore and members of the Peace and Reconciliation Committee, in conjunction with the Amanyanabo of Bakana, King Kegan I. Will-Braide and security agencies arrived the town for a unity session with some erstwhile cultists who had renounced violence.
A measure of hope for peace community living greeted the air on Thursday in Bakana when the chairman of Degema Local Govenrment Area (DELGA), Hon. Tony T. Philmoore and members of the Peace and Reconciliation Committee, in conjunction with the Amanyanabo of Bakana, King Kegan I. Will-Braide and security agencies arrived the town for a unity session with some erstwhile cultists who had renounced violence.
The move, which was made possible after several tedious rounds of peace talk in Port Harcourt, was geared towards normalcy in Bakana, a community that has become a shadow of its former bubbling and boisterous past.
In the community hall, the immediate past secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in DELGA, Mr. Charles Sylvanus appealed to the chiefs' women and other law-abiding youths of Bakana to find a space in their hearts to forgive the perpetrators of the havoc which almost turned the whole place into a ghost town, with several destructions in the wake of numerous cult strikes and counter attacks.
The PDP ex-scribe emphasized that only a deliberate decision to forgive the past can help Bakana indigenes and residents work for a repositioning of the community in the scheme of things, at both the LG and State levels.
In appreciation of the groundwork facilitated by the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force in Bakana, and the chairman of council, one of the returning youths pledged to help in the continued search for sustainable peace in the community, noting that the endless violence has left them with uncountable losses and that for them, there was a new realization that "There is no place like home".
Earlier on, Hon Philmoore, almost in tears, had told the Telegraph how ashamed he was that his community was almost in total shambles yet some political gangsters who call themselves heavy weights were frustrating every move to have the people unite for their own good.
He recounted how frustrating the peace process had been since talks would break down each time a deal seemed to be near, blaming the chaos in Bakana on some wicked politicians who do not want any initiative that is not theirs to succeed.
In fact, he disclosed that as at the time of the chat, the wife and child of one top Volunteer Force member had been abducted by cultists opposed to the new deal for peace in Bakana. According to him, it took a lot of reassurances and persuasion to stop the NDPVF in Bakana from backing out of the peace process.
From information available, members of the DELGA Peace & Reconciliation Committee had to be shared into two groups: one part continued on the Bakana trip while the other had to rush back to make complaints to the security apparatus for a dragnet to be spread around Etche Waterfront in Borikiri for the recovery of the abducted duo. A ransom of ten thousand was finally paid to secure their release. "That's where Bakana has come to", the DELGA boss lamented.