If Chief Thomas Osen Ekpemupolo died, then it was clear he had been killed by the Nigerian Army. I saw him while I was at Kurutie Ijo on his bipeds.- standing on two feet. He was so full of life. He joked with me when he said he could outrun me in a relay race. He asked about the North and specifically about Kano. He asked how I was able to cope. He offered me his drink- a local brew of natural wine straight from the raffia palm caught at the foot of the equatorial swamp.
I saw him pour a sachet of palliatives on the glass and wound it around the wine and took a mouth ful. It was one act, that almost made me want to feel the taste of what that was. But somewhat I chose to take bottled water. If Chief Thomas Osen Ekpemupolo died then somebody has to be held to account and we cant look too far but to determine the content of briefs given the soldiers that came to Kurutie Ijo at dawn.
What were they looking for to have warranted such a forced break into the Chief’s Home at dawn who was then ordered to evacuate his Home in ten minutes? Ten minutes? How do you wake up an octogenarian from sleep, a senior citizen for that matter and order Him to leave the only place he knows as Home? Under what convention does that rule apply and who taught it?
The Nigerian Army must account for the Death of this man- Yes the Chief has a sprawling palace of a Home in Warri but he loves kurutie Ijo for that was his Home. It was within his clear choice to move to the safety of his other Home in Warri during all the rumor of a pending crisis but Kurutie was his Home.
I remember when I brought my Mum to live with me in Kano, I found she became so restive and uncomfortable- she had an apartment to herself fitted with Airconditioner and water Heater apertures and a soothing bed orthopaedically designed for senior citizens but I found out that every evening she anticipates my return from the office and comes to wait for me at the gate far from where other members of my family were to say she wants to return back to Sapele.
When I asked her what she left in Sapele that she wants to go and take, She then confided in me that at her age and time it was no longer feasible to stay far from Home. That staying further in kano was killing her. I quickly resolved to take her back. I went to her room one of those nights and told her to tell me a brief history of herself and family.
I quickly scribbled it down in the best tradition of historical art and soon thereafter took her back to Sapele. She was right for she died not so long afterwards. I had thought I could meet Chief Osen Ekpemupolo a couple of times over. I had thought I could have a one to one banter with him as I intended to work on collecting the oral History of the Ijo people of Gbaramatu at least to put the record straight as to how the Ijo people came to own Gbaramatu.
I had thought I could do a couple of more things with Him. I remember he told me that the Federal Government was after his Family because it was believing the lies of people who hated Him and his children. But he assured me it would all be over soon. Little did I know that he was talking about his decease, as scripturally every war ends with the shedding of blood as without shedding of blood there can be no remission. Papa has offered to make the supreme sacrifice and has chosen to shed his blood for the reprieve of the Niger Delta people.Chief Thomas Osen Ekpemupolo was by no means an ordinary Citizen.
He is the ‘ete’ of kurutie Ijo, He is also the Tunteriwei of Gbaramatu kingdom, Warri South-West local government area, with traditional headquarters in Oporoza. He is the Father of a known resource right fighter and the scion of egalitarian order in societal devolution- High Chief Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo. There was every reason for him to be at the location he was before he was stamped upon. There was every reason for him to lie peacefully in his Home insofar as he was not a threat to himself or society.
As clan head and invested with a staff of office of the Delta State traditional Council of Chiefs, there was every reason for him to stay in the midst of his own people to attend to their daily judicial needs and related matters. To ask an octogenarian to evacuate his Home in ten minutes and to stamp on him when the military commander felt he was too slow to move was one error taking too far. He was made to run from his Home to the water front a distance of about 60meters. His travail vividly reminds me of how the Home of Oba Ovonramwen Nogbaisi was sacked by an invading British Soldiers which incidentally the Nigerian Army is a typical offspring of that soldiering whose only known professional preoccupation is to invade Homes of royalties and in the guise of doing military duty cart away precious carvings and other exotic materials.
There is no other way to justify this military action than to explain it in this lurid term. Once the Chief was moved to Warri, he began developing multiple pains on the left limb and was immediately taken into the Lily Hospital where initial prognosis showed the leg had to be amputated. The limb was eventually amputated and one issue after another created a spiral of events which led to Papa’s demise in the early hours of Wednesday 7th September 2016 at the Lily Hospice Warri.
The facts in issue are without ambiguity- why would professional soldiers if they truly are. harangue an old man about the age of the Nations Commander in Chief? Are there no other ways for the military to approach the Home before the dawn raid? Who actually pointed the Chief’s Home to the invading soldiers? Who is working as a mole in the Ijo community whose supposed lies and vindictive disposition towards the Ekpemupolo family is leading him into this many unwarranted criminal bigotry?
Is it not possible to win a surveillance contract from the Federal Government without having to lie to compromise the safety of other Nigerian Citizens? I insist there is evidence of a war crime which the military high command must investigate- a war crime defined in the statute that established the International Criminal Court, as grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, such as: willful killing, or causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health. Torture or inhumane treatment.
A war crime could also be an act carried out during the conduct of a war that violates accepted international rules of war. In which case, in the dawn raid undertaken by men of the Nigerian Military, there was no war at Kurutie, no firefight, The only thing that happened was the band of rampaging soldiers charging into the Home of an octogenarian with artillery provided for by tax payers monies part of which Chief Thomas Osen Ekpemupolo is a payee, to disposess a peaceful Home and to cause the death of the Clan Head of Kurutie Ijo.
We have picture evidence and forensic analysis and related pictograph of the limbs of Chief Thomas Osen Ekpemupolo measured through isotopic time scales to determine the time of the sundry events and place criminal culpability in the Hague. We continue to ask the blood of the slain Chief to hunt his killers as we pray that God grant his beautiful soul pleasant rest in his Bosom- Sun re ooo!!!!!!
