Military men attached to the Koko community in Warri North Council area of Delta State yesterday arrested four masquerades and a number of elderly men and youths taken to their base for torture.
Trouble started Sunday afternoon when the community, in the course of their masquerade display that was allegedly marked with notices to all relevant security agencies and authorities in the town unknowingly accosted a soldier man in mufti in the community with the soldier allegedly fighting the masquerade back. The action of the man infuriated the youths and there was a show down.
It was learnt that the military man then went back to base and came with his colleagues who then arrested four of the masquerades at the different point in the town, forcefully taking them away in a Toyota Hilux Van to their base for thorough beating with a soldier woman questioning the masquerades that ordinarily do not speak with anybody during the duration they are outside their shrine.
The action of the soldiers angered the whole community who mobilized to the military base and got their arrested masquerades released with an appeasement process put in place in the night of Sunday which the soldiers also allegedly disrupted.
It was learnt that Monday fracas resumed when the soldiers allegedly block the only access road of the town, preventing movement of all kind in the community that is the headquarters of Warri North council.
Speaking to newsmen on condition of anonymity, a leader of Koko community whose father was among the elderly men taken by the soldier for flogging and corporal punishment said the soldier in mufti only came into the community to look for trouble, noting that he was expected to give way to the masquerade like every other person in the community instead proving stubborn, wondering if the military men do not have their own culture from where they came. “Apart from informing the security agencies as is our practice, why did he not wear his uniform when he knew was entering into the community proper”, he wondered. He said what the soldiers did was sacrilegious and the town needs be cleansed.
Another resident said the “Police knows the culture where and duly abide by it every year or time these masquerades are brought out for display by the entire Koko community. We do not want these soldiers here again, they are arbitrary in most of their actions and takes undue delight in harassing the youths and women of the town. What we want here is Police Marine Base in the river, he stated.
The Itsekiri monarch was reported to sent some of his chiefs to Koko Monday morning to resolved the matter with the military men, even as the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, of the Koko Police station decline to comment on the issue and the state police public relation officer, Celestina Kalu would not pick her calls.
However, the Member representing the Warri Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Hon. Dan Reyenieju promised to wade urgently into the matter through the Commanding officer in Charge of the Koko military base.
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