No forgiveness to Ombatse, protesting parents scream during presidential visit

Placard bearing parents of the 10 operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) murdered alongside scores of policemen at Alakyo, declared in a protest before Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo during his visit to Lafia, today,  that they have no forgiveness for the murderers of their children. The protesters who bore placards bearing anti-establishment inscriptions, […]

Placard bearing parents of the 10 operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) murdered alongside scores of policemen at Alakyo, declared in a protest before Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo during his visit to Lafia, today,  that they have no forgiveness for the murderers of their children.

The protesters who bore placards bearing anti-establishment inscriptions, crowded the Federal High Court along Shendam Road, as early as
9am when the vice president was being expected in Lafia, and displayed their placards in wait for his arrival at the court complex which he
commissioned in company of Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura and information minister, Labaran Maku.

But security operatives stationed to guard the road barred them from going near the complex, before and during the event of the
commissioning.

The vice president left the venue of the ceremony and connected the road at about 12:21pm, with the protesters still  there. They raised the
placards at his convoy, just as they raised their voices, screaming “we want justice, we want justice for our children”, among other things.

The protesters, most of them elderly people, decried the federal government’s attitude towards the murder of their children while they were
on their way to Alakyo, saying they were shocked that the Nigerian government has not said or done anything to demonstrate feelings for the parents and other family members of the slain SSS operatives.

Dr. Nandul Durfa, a 64-year old who led the protesters, said he had to leave Jos in Plateau State, for Lafia to join other parents who also
arrived Lafia from other parts of the country, to register their grievances to the federal government.

“We are saying it is now three months since that incident and government has not done anything to give us confidence in them. Our children were sent on an operation to save other Nigerians, and they were not given any protection. We can’t see them alive; we can’t see their corpses”, Dr. Durfa, who added that the agency only sent them death certificate of their children, said.

“They only sent us death certificates of our children. There were no corpses sent to us. We want the corpses of our children. They should go to that village and retrieve those corpses and hand them to us, so we can bury our children”, he added.

Saidu Isah Gobir, another elderly protester who also lost his son in the murder, said he travelled to Lafia, to tell the president or his
representative that he is disappointed in them over their attitude towards the murders.

“They have kept quiet as if nothing happened. We lost children in that operation; that they must know. We are angry. All we are told is that the SSS has announced forgiveness. We don’t want to hear that”, Allhaji Gobir said.

Another protester, Nimsel Nanyal, a 57-year old who held a placard with the inscription:  “Pls Mr. President, Its Now We Want Fresh Air”, told Daily Trust that he received a death certificate for his son, and has waited three straight months to hear about government’s steps towards giving his son justice, with disappointment.

“I am disappointed that security men were killed and government cannot give them justice. In Britain, one soldier was killed on the street, not in the line of duty as our children; and the British Prime Minister was everywhere making statements. He even attended the burial. Here, we were sent with certificates, and that is all,” the elder said.

This protestis coming barely three weeks after wives and other family members of the slain operatives raised their voices in protest, and
disrupted the Nation Anthem in Government House, when Ebonyi State governor, Martins Elechi, Babangida Aliyu, Ramalan Yaro of Kaduna, Sule Lamido of Jigawa, and the host, Al-Makura as well as the deputy governor of Katsina State, and Senator Abdullahi Adamu (PDP, Nasarawa-West), paid sympathy visits to them.