Niger Delta
AKULGA Women Weep For Their Dead
Thousands of women of Akuku-Toru Local Government Area (AKULGA) made a peaceful walk in Abonnema to protest the killings during the Presidential and National Assembly elections.
The women, who were in black and in a sorrowful mood, sang peaceful songs, started their walk from the Abonnema Girls’ Secondary School field where the mayham started to the palace of the Amanyanabo of AKULGA, King Disrael Bob-Manuel.
Several placards with messages of “Vote not kill “We don’t want army in Akulga” etc were carried by the women at the palace. The leader of the delegation the Commissioner of Culture and Tourism Hon Tonye Biggs-Oniyide, announced to the AKULGA Council of Chiefs that the mission of the women was to sensitise indigene of AKULGA to be peaceful at all elections.
According to her, AKULGA had always been known as a peaceful local government area. Furthermore she pleaded with the monarch to ask indigence of the area who are holding powers of authority at the federal level to use their God- given positions to better the lives of the people just as others have done in their various areas, not to intimidate or cause mayhem.
The commissioner said some of the women were widows now and had also lost sons and daughters in this conflict.
Mrs. Oniyide said women who suffered most were pleading with Abonnema Council of Chiefs to use their good offices to reach out to the federal government to desist from sending the army to AKULGA for elections.
On his part, the Amanyanabo seeing the women weeping and sprawling on the ground, in his address the asked them to be of good courage. He said what happened on the 23rd February 2019 in AKULGA was most unusual and that even in the Biafran War people did not witness such dastardly act on the street of Abonnema.