13th March, 2015
Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
Hundreds of ex-militants from Bayelsa state today staged a violent protest by blocking the Mbiama /Yenagoa road by Tombia junction.
The ex-militants were protesting against the Bayelsa state government for allegedly hijacking a pipeline surveillance contract awarded to them by the Federal government.
The protest paralyzed social and economic activities in the area of the state. Shop owners hastily closed as the angry militants engaged the officers and men from the Bayelsa state Police Command who came to disperse them in violent confrontation.
A police truck was destroyed by the ex-militants when police tried to disperse them with teargas to allow for free flow of traffic on the major access road to the Yenagoa, the state capital.
There was an earlier rumour that one of the ex-militants was shot dead for leading the riotous gang that destroyed the police truck.
However, the Bayelsa state Police command, Public relations Officer, Asinim Butswat, in a telephone interview confirmed the violent protest but said that situation had been brought under control, noting that, one of it’s trucks was destroyed by ex-militants.
Butswat denied that the police shot and killed any ex-militant before normalcy was returned.
It would be recalled that the federal government last week awarded Pipelines Surveillance Contract to very vocal ex-militant leaders in the Niger Delta worth millions of dollars.
The federal government under it’d amnesty programme has been giving out contracts for the surveillance of the network of petroleum products that criss-cross the landscape of the Niger Delta.
The Nation Newspaper reported that Government Tompolo; Mujaheedin Asari-Dokubo and Chief Bipobiri Ajube (aka Gen. Shoot-At-Sight) are some of the ex-militants to get surveillance contracts.
Others are the founder of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) Dr. Frederick Fasehun and OPC National co-ordinator, Otunba Gani Adams.