EXPORT PROCESSING ZONE:

Nigerian Navy has assured Ugborodo community in Warri South West Local Government, where the Federal Government is about inaugurating the $16bn export processing zone project, that it would do everything to ensure that peace was restored.
The Commanding Officer, Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS Delta), Warri, Captain Musa Gemu, said yesterday in Warri that the force was already on the ground to provide the needed secure environment for the smooth take-off of the project.

Nigerian Navy has assured Ugborodo community in Warri South West Local Government, where the Federal Government is about inaugurating the $16bn export processing zone project, that it would do everything to ensure that peace was restored.
The Commanding Officer, Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS Delta), Warri, Captain Musa Gemu, said yesterday in Warri that the force was already on the ground to provide the needed secure environment for the smooth take-off of the project.
Gemu said last Monday’s violence by some youths in Aruton in Ugborodo community would not deter security men from ensuring that peace returned to the community.
He said his men had successfully entered Aruton community and were well received by locals only for one Mike Lodge, a youth leader to lead some people to ask the soldiers to leave the community.
Though he denied having any confrontation with the youths, Gemu said, “I ordered my men to return but on their way at about 2.a.m. had a boat mishap during which two naval personnel sustained injuries and are now receiving treatment,” he said.
The naval commander, who briefed journalists along with the Commanding Officer, Forward Operational Base, Escravos, Navy Captain Adekunle Okeniyi, Air force Commander, Air Commodore Ayo Dudusola and Police Area Commander, Warri, ACP Hussein Rabiu, expressed disappointment over the setback caused by the said Lodge in the implementation of the peace agreement.
He said Lodge would be invited to explain why he was working against the peace agreement in the community.
Gemu said the security committee had achieved between 75 and 80 percent of the agreement reached with the elders and stakeholders in the community for peace to return for the smooth implementation of the Federal Government EPZ project stressing that the military would not be provoked by that singular act of Lodge.
“That action of Lodge is a betrayal of trust and very unfortunate and that does not deter us from the ongoing peace process. I want you to realise that peace keeping, in the whole world, is a very tasking job and that is why I tried to be open and transparent in the implementation of the agreement,” he added.
He said the military had been neutral in the implementation of the peace process so far and that it was this reason that he had no personal relationship with any of the leaders of the factions.
He therefore tasked the EZP Implementation Peace Committee to carry out more sensitisation programmes to enable the people know about the understanding reached in the peace process.
He said part of the agreement has been met with the release of some of the youth leaders kept at Okere prisons while efforts were on to release the body of the deceased for proper burial as demanded by the community.