23rd October, 2020
By Okafor Ofiebor /Port Harcourt
Soldiers have been deployed to the crisis-ridden Oyigbo area of Rivers State, where over 500 suspected members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, attacked and burnt two Police Stations and 15 cars, including an Armoured Personnel Carrier, APC on Wednesday.
Expectedly, there have been sporadic gunfire throughout last night up to the early hours of Friday, with residents including a Journalist and his family calling for help as people were running helter and skelter for safety amidst booming gunfire.
In one of the posts sent by the affected journalist to his colleagues, “From last night till now guys help us … gunfire ranging. I learnt they have evacuated the expatriates working in the Afam Power Station last in Oyigbo night.”
Also sources have confirmed that shootings have continued in parts of Oyigbo and Iriebe in Obio-Akpor LG since last night.
Meanwhile the Police Command in a press statement on Thursday said “hoodlums numbering about 500 suspected to be members of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) invaded the Oyigbo Area Command, Oyigbo and Afam Police Stations, setting them ablaze and damaging about fifteen vehicles, including one Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), with two police officers killed and some arms and ammunition carted away by the hoodlums”.
The police had said that “in another attack at the Mile one Police Station, the same rampaging IPOB members who operated under the guise of #EndSARS protests made frantic attempt at burning the Mile One Police Station and the office of Eagle Crack Squad but were however repelled by the superior fire power of the police, as three of them were fatally wounded in the exchange of gunfire, while eight of them were arrested and immediately transferred to State CID where they are currently helping in our investigation.”
Governor Nyesom Wike had declared 24-hour curfew in entire Oyigbo LG and other parts of the state on Wednesday in a statewide broadcast.