Unknown gunmen on Tuesday were said to have struck at the coastal community of Kuroamagbene in the southern Ijaw local government area of Bayelsa, killing two persons described as relatives of Godswill Ziriki, Special Adviser on higher education to Governor Seriake Dickson.
The killings happened just as the Joint Military Task Force declared that it was tough to fight oil thieves and kidnappers in Bayelsa and Delta States due to the peculiar coastal terrain of the areas.
A security source said that the killings took place in the early hours of Tuesday three days after eight persons were killed at Lorbia in the same local government area of Bayelsa.
“We have identified the victims as close relatives of the Special Adviser to the governor on Higher Education,” said the source.
Sources in the community disclosed that the victims had come to the community to attend a wake. They were reportedly shot and killed as they joined other youths to scare away some intruders suspected to be pirates from stealing a speed boat at the community waterfront.
“They joined others to raise an alarm and to haul stones at the intruders,” said one community source. He added that the armed intruders became infuriated and opened fire, killing two in the process. The gunmen reportedly fled the scene without accomplishing their mission of stealing the speed boat.
Also officials of the Joint Military Task Force, also known as “Operation Pulo Shield,” declared the waterways and creeks of Bayelsa and Delta States as a new hub of criminal activities in the Niger Delta.
According to the task force, the gangs of kidnappers in the South-South and other parts now use coastal communities in the two states as hideouts. The task force also revealed that the areas were attracting daring oil thieves.
The task force’s media coordinator, Lieutenant Colonel Onyema Nwachukwu, stated that renewed security action had recorded close to 500 arrests of oil thieves, the seizure of 18 vessels, 26 barges, 545 boats and 748 illegal crude distillation camps. Even so, he revealed that the incidents of illegal crude distillation and daring incursions by oil thieves remain prevalent in Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers States.
The JTF has identified communities such as the Akassa, Igbematoru, Tebidaba, Sagana and Kola/Obieku in Rivers and Bayelsa States for their notoriety as locations of oil theft. The task force has also declared Ukubie, Lorbia 1 and Lorbia 2, Ekeni and Ezetu communities of in the southern Ijaw areas of Bayelsa as favorite hideouts for kidnappers from different parts of the country.
The JTF spokesman said, “we have discovered that in most communities, they even store stolen crude in septic tanks. And the people have been so oppressed by these oil thieves, pirates and kidnappers, that they are afraid to volunteer information to the JTF.” He added that the task force had “identified the causes of insecurity and criminal activities by gunmen and other hoodlums in Azuzuama and other areas of Southern Ijaw.”
He asserted that the task force had “identified the perpetrators and tracked them through a Joint Operation code-named Operation Clean Slate. The hideouts of the criminals were destroyed and various war-like materials, including speed boats, assorted ammunition and communication gadgets were either destroyed or recovered.”
