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MARCH 19, 2007 VOL. 20. NO 23

The Reign of Blood

**Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State**

Hardly a day passes without the spilling of blood in several parts of Rivers State, thus creating fear and apprehension amongst the citizenry
By Lawson Heyford, Port Harcourt
mal but human blood gushing out from victims of communal conflict; cult or cult-related activities and even armed robbery operations. In all of this, the police seem helpless, despite the state government’s huge investment through the provision of vehicles, equipment and infrastructural facilities to assist the State Police Command to prevent and combat crime and other crime related offences.
Last Tuesday, The Source learnt that armed robbers struck at the bridge head, the boundary between Abia and Rivers States dislodged the three mobile policemen conveying money from a commercial bank in Port Harcourt to Umuahia in a bullion van. According to eye-witness accounts, the robbers who came in rickety saloon car overtook the bullion van and fired shots into the vehicle, causing it to taxi to a halt. The mobile policemen who accompanied the vehicle scampered into the bush for safety, leaving the driver at the mercy of the dare-devil bandits. In the end, they made away with sacks of money, amounting to over N70million, before abandoning the driver in a pool of his own blood.
Penultimate Friday, also, gunmen ran riot along the Emenike – Okija Street Junction, Ikwerre Road, Port Harcourt, killing no fewer than 12 persons including three Hausa men and a pregnant woman. Six of the victims were innocent people either selling their wares along the road or passers-by. They were victims of a cult attack on members of a rival cult group. The police in an account said that the incident occurred when a cult group from Mgbuosimini was conveying a member’s corpse for burial and they were attacked by a rival group. from Diobu, Port Harcourt.
Besides the 12 persons confirmed dead, eight others were reportedly injured, with two of them giving up the ghost at the Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital (BMSH), Port Harcourt.
The State Commissioner of Police, Felix Ogbaudu, confirmed that only seven persons died in the clash. While the leader of the Hausa community in the area, Alhaji Iman condemned the act and the poor response for help from the police; he admitted that the gun battle took everyone unaware. Consequent upon the incident, there was stampede along Ikwerre Road and the entire Diobu axis as residents of the area fled their residences for safety.
Two days after, precisely on Sunday, there was a seeming reprisal attack, spreading from Ikoku Junction down to Gambia Street within the Port Harcourt metropolis, leading to the killing of at least two persons. The killing spree was to spread to the campuses of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST), Port Harcourt where lives have been snuffed out of at least one student each passing week in recent times. It is not clear, however, which cult group is spearheading the recent killing spree on the campus, but The Source learnt that incidents of cult activities which had reduced considerably about a year ago, has suddenly resurfaced, causing fear among students and lecturers. Gripped with this intense fear, students of the school have passionately appealed to the state government to take urgent steps to stem the killings on their campus. Some of the students who pleaded anonymity for fear of being identified, said they had come there to learn and not to be involved in killing their fellow students. From the RSUST, student cult groups invaded the Ojoto axis, close to their campus, shot sporadically and killed two persons, once again sending everyone scampering for safety.
Last month, armed robbers whose attempt to rob a commercial bank along the Rumuokuta end of Ikwerre Road was foiled by vigilant mobile policemen attached to the Kala Police Station, were to unleash terror on passers-by. While one of the robbers, including a woman was shot dead by the agile securitymen, the robbers on the way back to their base, pumped bullets into a Mercedez Benz car, killing all four Naval officers who were heading to the Rumuolemini Naval Base, Port Harcourt.
In all three incidents, the police have not been able to make any arrest yet, although other caategories of criminals are daily being apprehended.
Also, in Kula in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area, over 27 persons including five chiefs, have so far been killed in a rage between the youths and some elders of the community. Twelve of the deceased were killed on January 8, 2007 while the latest incident of last Tuesday, March 6, claimed 15 lives.
The latest killing followed disagreements over whether the Epellama II Oil Flow Station owned by Shell Petroleum Development Company, (SPDC), should be allowed to be closed down by some irate youths. This was made possible by the withdrawal from the area of soldiers posted there after the first killing.
Early this month, the two neighbouring communities of Mogho and Bodo in Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers State engaged themselves in a bloodbath which left no fewer than 65 persons confirmed dead and over 500 houses destroyed, rendering hundreds of thousands of residents homeless. As calm returned to the troubled area following the intervention of the state government which ordered security operatives to move in and quell the hostilities, an attempt was made to kill the State’s Commissioner for Finance, Kenneth Kobani, last weekend. Gunmen, numbering about four, had driven to the residence of the Commissioner along Birabi Street, GRA, Port Harcourt and tried in vain to force themselves into the highly fortified premises. Mobile policemen guarding the Commissioner’s house were to engage the hired killers who were armed with sophisticated weapons, in a gun duel, gunning down one of them, while the assassins also killed one of the security personnel. It was not clear whether the attempt on Kobani’s life was an aftermath of the clash between the two communities of the Mogho and Bodo, his country home, but notably, that would be the second time that hired assassins would be after the Finance Commissioner. The first was early last year when a bomb was detonated within his premises, damaging cars and other property, but no life was lost.
In response to the development, Governor Peter Odili visited the warring communities and promised to institute a commission of inquiry into the protracted skirmishes between the two neighbouring villages.
In addition, the governor promised to send relief materials to the communities and pledged the government’s assistance in the rehabilitation of the displaced persons. Observers, however, regard the government’s timely intervention effort as selective, citing other communities with similar problems but which got no government intervention.
For instance, on August 15, 2004, some hoodlums invaded Ataba community in Andoni Local Government Area, killed over 30 persons including children and pregnant women and destroyed over 300 houses. More than two years after that incident, neither the governor nor any state government official has visited the war-torn community. Nor was any relief material, or any other form of assistance rendered to the homeless people of Ataba.
Instructively, even the government White Paper on the disturbances which arose from a squabble over traditional rulership title (Okan-ama) of Ataba, was alleged to have been doctored and is now a subject of litigation at a High Court in Port Harcourt. Political observers see the government action as selective justice, wondering why the same law could not be applied to individuals or communities with similar problems.