The late Sunday night invasion of Iyara Community in the heart of Warri South Local Government area of Delta state, by some unidentified armed youths has left in its wake a building razed and few other persons sustaining injuries in the attack.
Sources in the community disclosed that the invaders armed with guns, cutlasses and other dangerous weapons at about 10:47pm on Sunday, shot sporadically into the air to scare away residents and in the process inflicted severe injuries on few persons in the area.
Residents of the area, especially women and children were reported to have ran helter skelter for their lives as the assailants branded their weapons freely to scare them away.
Daily Sun reports that a common sight at the scene of the attack were bullet riddled walls and commercial tricycles used for commercial purposes by some residents of the area.
While the reason for the attack is not clear, many people are of the opinion, it not be in connected to the recent wards delineation exercise recently announced by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) particularly in the Warri South area.
According to a reliable source, the assailants had two days earlier carried out attack in some areas within the Local Government to register their perceived grievances with the wards delineation announced by INEC aftermath the Supreme Court judgement on the case.
When contacted, the Chairman of Warri South Local Government Area, Comrade Isaac Agbateyinro said, those who carried out this act are yet unknown. He however said when he got wind of the matter and immediately mobilized adequate security forces to the area.
“As I speak with you adequate security agencies have been deployed to the area and they are maintaining law and order and i can tell you that peace had since returned to the area”.
On his part, a former youth leader and stakeholder in the Iyara Community, Chief Onoriode Okoh, expressed shock over the attack wondering what would led to such an attack on the people in the area that led to the setting a building ablaze and riddling tricycles with bullets.
He urged the people should not attach tribal sentiments to the attack just as he called for peaceful coexistence of all the ethnic groups in the area.
Okoh also cautioned the youths in the area not take laws into hands by destroying any property nor injure anybody while investigation is ongoing to fish out perpetrators of the dastardly act.
According to him; “We don’t want any body to attach tribal sentiments to the attack. The Urhobos, Itsekiris and Ijaws are intermarried and have been living together peacefully over the years.So, we don’t want ethnic coloration to this attack”.
Speaking further, “Should there be any issue, as some have alleged in some quarters that it is connected to Wards delineation in Warri South Council such persons can channel their grievances to Independent National Electoral Commission (INWC) rather than cause disaffection among the people who have lived together peacefully for decades and intermarriage”.
While thanking the security agencies for their timely intervention in quelling the skirmishes and bringing normalcy to the area, he expressed the optimism that the matter would be investigated and the culprits brought to book.
Responding to the issue of wards delineation in Warri South, a legal practitioner, Chief Robinson Ariyo, faulted the way and manner the exercise was carried out by all the stakeholders involved in the process.
According to him; “I have watched with keen interest and rapt attention, the events leading to the INEC proposal for Warri Federal Constituency of the 4th day of April, 2025 and would have not commented on same save for the fact that as admirers of Karl Marx we subscribe to the view that; “To leave an error unrefuted is to encourage intellectual immorality”.
“Consequently, notwithstanding the fact that the said proposal is inherently and manifestly invalid by reason of gross violation of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended, INEC guidelines and deliberate contempt of court; the combination of which should ordinarily not require our comments, we now elect not to leave this poorly executed and corrupt exercise without a proper treatment”.
Accordingly, we note as follows: “That INEC was aware at the material time, that there was and remains not just a pending appeal on the subject matter of the said event it proposed and conducted on the 4th of April, 2025, but that there is in fact, a Motion on Notice duly filed before the Court to the knowledge of INEC, seeking a stay of actions regarding the said event in particular and associated activities in general”.
“May we refer INEC to the court processes already served on it as at the 2nd day of April, 2025 in this regard”, he stated.