Posted by By SHOLA OSHUNKEYE AND FEMI FOLARANMI on
Those who knew him before soldiers came calling on Monday, November 29, 1999, say Pa Ismail Iti, an 84-year-old Ghana-returnee-turned-farmer and hunter in Odi, an Ijaw community in the Kolokuma-Opokuma Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, was ‘rich', confident and somewhat proud.
Those who knew him before soldiers came calling on Monday, November 29, 1999, say Pa Ismail Iti, an 84-year-old Ghana-returnee-turned-farmer and hunter in Odi, an Ijaw community in the Kolokuma-Opokuma Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, was ‘rich', confident and somewhat proud.
When you are husband to four wives, sire 10 children and own a big house that could pass for a mansion in local standards, you cannot but feel secure and sure. But as he sits on a white plastic chair this breezy midmorning, he is everything but confident.
Clad in a dirty khaki short and a tattered shirt that reveals ribs on his concertina chest, he looks pale, taut and rheumy-eyed as he stares blankly at the falling pillars and ruins of what used to be his mansion. Tears welled in his sunken eyes as he recounts his day of sorrow, the day soldiers marched on Odi and his world took a wild whirl. Since that day, he has become a reluctant roommate with his free-range chicken in what used to be his kitchen and poultry but which he converted to his habitation in the wake of the invasion.
'It met me here," he said, pointing to what used to be his sitting room but which has now developed into a huge anthill from where giant ants busy themselves in a frenetic but highly organized survival activities. 'My people ran into the school compound down the street as the soldiers were shooting and demolishing everything in sight. Some of them even slept with some of our women. My people said I should run but I refused. Why should I? Why should I be afraid of death at my age? Besides, I had no connection with the boys making trouble. So, why should I run? But my people dragged me out and we ran into the bush."
Pa Iti may be considered somewhat lucky going by the experience of Pa Andrew Edike, 78 , who lost his house and other belongings , and he is now solely dependent on his children and brothers for survival. 'I did not bargaion for this type of miserable living," he said sadly. 'They soldiers made me like this. I don't have anything to tell this government. They have done their worst. I'm waiting for God's best."
After the dust of the invasion settled, Pa Orogbaye Amagbare, 78, another senior citrizen of Odi, said he had only one pair of trousers, a polo shirt and sleeveless singlet. Everything he ever worked for, including valuable documents, was razed with his house. Like Edike, Amagbare and Chief Deckboy Opalenti, another senior citizen who suffered irreversible dislocation from the invasion, bluntly refused to send any word to the president. They would not pray for the country either. 'Pray for what?" Opalenti retorted. 'The country can pray for itself." Such anger. Such sorrow.
Although it is over six years the world of Odi turned upside down when the federal government ordered troops to flush out the killers of some 10 policemen earlier dispatched there to keep the peace, time, the ultimate healer, seems to have failed woefully in healing the wounds inflicted on the people during the days of blood. Everywhere you go, scars of war still gape at you. Several of the victims are still dislocated from what used to be their residence and fortress. Some of those who fled during the three weeks the soldiers occupied the land before the senate, then presided over by the late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, ordered them out, are yet to return. For some, the injuries are not just physical but deeply internal as everything seems to have fallen apart around them and their centre of the existence has refused to hold.
Some of the buildings that were hit during the military exercise are still in rubbles. Although some of the damaged buildings have been rehabilitated, wearing new coats of colours, investigations by Weekly Spectator however reveal that their owners, rather than government, did the renovation. Residents allege that governments, both state and federal, have not helped in rebuilding the town and have generally reneged on their promise to give the community palliatives to assuage the pains induced by the attack.
Beyond the physical scars, however, King Shine Andrew Apre, the Imgbela 12 and the Amananaowei of Odi was a study in sadness as he recalled the day soldiers brought down hell on his subjects, saying the invasion, though it happened some six years ago, has midwifed another current of trouble for his kingdom.
Although he confessed to not seeing any woman raped, he said he heard that some of the rampaging soldiers defiled some of his female subjects. And some of those forced liaisons had produced several children, whose paternity could not be ascertained, at least going by the monthly registration of births and deaths that is usually done in his palace. In fact, he said some children had been brought that were registered only in their mothers' names, as the whereabouts of their fathers were unknown. It is this rising case of fatherless children , yielded by the invasion that is now giving him nightmares.
'Some of our ladies can still not be traced," he told our correspondents who visited Odi recently. 'Some of those that left did not come back. '(We learnt) some of them were raped but I didn't see them myself as I had run into the bush with my family. And to support that, there are some people that now come to collect identification (for their children) as members of my kingdom. And since they didn't know where their fathers are from, we became suspicious."
This development, he added, has brought sorrow to him because it may never be possible to know the fathers of the children concerned even as there is high probability that they are products of the forced flings by soldiers while the occupation of Odi lasted. Asked pointedly if it would ever be possible to establish the paternity of the affected children, the Amananaowei's face contorted in apparent pain as he declared: 'We can't. There is no economic power to embark on such mission."
Still, the monarch was not done. He cast one long look back at the whole saga and expressed profuse regret that his town and subjects had been abandoned to their fate like orphans. 'I am bitter that there is no assistance from the federal government," he said, adding that contrary to the government's position that the invasion was a direct consequence of the alleged murderous activities of youths from his domain, 'that invasion, no matter the name you want to call it, was not caused by the youths of Odi.
'I was told, and I know that some youths in Yenagoa(the Bayelsa State capital) were driven away from where they were living at the black market and they came to settle at Odi. As at that time, the council was pressing to see that the youths were sent away from Odi, because we heard government drove them from Yenagoa. It was in the midst of these attempts to chase them away that some policemen were killed and they ran away. This was why I said I was bitter because we knew it was not caused by our youths but the federal government just decided to punish us."
The interview took a dramatic turn as the king was suddenly overwhelmed by emotion and asked the kingdom's spokesperson and a member of his kitchen cabinet, Chief