The President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, has weighed in on the controversy surrounding the killing of sixteen soldiers at Okuama in Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta state last Thursday.

The number three citizen said those who killed the officers and men of the 181 Amphibious Battalion were outsiders.

He asserted that the assailants were not from within the Niger Delta geo- political zone of the country or even from Nigeria.

He made the assertion on Tuesday during debate on two merged motions by Senators Abdulaziz Yar’Adua, APC, Katsina Central and Edeh Dafinone, APC, Delta Central.

Akpabio noted that the youths who murdered the Soldiers might be Mercenaries, stressing that the country is not at war.

” I don’t think they are from the Niger Delta, they may be mercenaries” he said.

The Senate has begun probe into the killings as it has asked its Committee on Defence, Army, Navy and Air force to liaise with the Military authorities to get more information on the remote and immediate cause of what it described as dastardly act.

It also charged the federal government to apprehend those behind the killing of the military personnel and bring them to book, just as it observed a minute silence in the honour of this killed.

The Upper Legislative Chamber also underscored the need to recruit more policemen so that the military will not be used for civil matters.

The Senate however turned down a request to observe a minute silence or to commiserate with the families of innocent civilians killed in the process, saying that their numbers are still unknown.

While the Senate rejected an additional prayer for relief materials for the community by the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA as proposed by Senator Dafinone, the Upper Chamber resolved that families of the killed soldiers should be compensated immediately as moved by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Barau Jibrin m APC, APC, Kano North and seconded by Senator Tony Nwoye, LP, Anambra North