••••SAYS TERRORISTS WHO MASSACRED WORSHIPPERS HAVE SUPPORT
The Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, (SAN), on Friday lamented that the Federal and state Governments failed the victims of the Owo Massacre,
The Governor spoke at the St Francis Catholic Church, Owo, venue of the funeral mass organized for 22 out of the 40 worshippers killed by terrorists at the church on Pentecost Sunday on June 5.
The 40 innocent worshippers of St Francis Catholic Church who were massacred by suspected terrorists have been buried at Owo today.
Ironically the funeral ceremony took place at the St Francis Catholic Church where the worshippers were massacred in a most barbaric, inhuman and callous manners by savage gunmen while worshipping their God.
The ceremony was marked by palpable grief, pathos, anger as worshippers struggled hard to fight off tears.
The hymns of the funeral mass were rendered with voices that sang with melancholy while Bishop Emmanuel Badejo, Bishop of Oyo Diocese delivered a gripping homily.
Akeredolu said that while many adjectives have been deployed to describe the unimaginable massacre of innocent people at Owo, the killings remain indescribable to him.
The Governor who was overwhelmed by the sense of loss and grief stopped his deeply emotional speech for seconds to fight off tears before he continued with so much efforts.
He said that the terrorists who he likened to animals killed 40 people with over 70 injured.
The Governor said that he was at the event to accept the failure of government and the security forces to defend and protect those massacred by the terrorists.
He said that government failed to defend the victims of the Owo massacre not because efforts were not being made but because the terrorists who perpetrated the evil have support.
“This is not a time to make speeches but when I see the sea of heads here, it speaks volume. What has happened to us in Owo, Ondo State is indescribable.
“A lot of words are used to qualify it: dastardly, horrendous, so many. But I still believe that there are better words to describe what happened. I am short of those words.
“When my Lord Bishop Jude Arogundade came and said prepare to put a closure to this, and we were thinking about using a field but God just put it in my mind that why don’t we use this venue. And we all agreed that there is no venue more befitting than this.
It is because God had a path in giving her beloved ones this befitting mass. This requiem mass is a befitting one for them. We
“We have just 22 in this hall. A few of them have been buried because the relatives couldn’t wait until today. As at the last count, these animals who came to St Francis Church murdered 40 and we still have over 70 people in the hospital. Some have been discharged.
“What is your Governor going to say in defence? Nothing! I am here before you to accept a failure of security. We have failed.
“We have failed to defend these people not because we are not trying but because the forces on the other side are evil and they have support.
“A few times, these forces of evil will triumph over us but that triumph cannot be for ever. It will not be forever.
“It is not here that we will just be talking about the failing of Governments.
“The Christian faith is not for us to throw our hands up and be murdered.
Something has to be done in this country.
“One of the victim is a policeman. His coffin is draped in police uniforms. The
Security architecture needs rejigging.” He said