By Boma Nwuke
Bonny, a once peaceful fishing community and Industrial hub is fast becoming one of the worst nightmares that arouses tension, displeasure and uncertainty following increasing security challenges in robbery, abduction and killing which dominate the airwaves day after day.
Before this time, commuters along the Port Harcourt- Bonny route encountered small scale sea robberies but from 2019- February 6,2021 the attacks snowballed into a major problem hitting the high and low as criminals who appear to be organised not only ,rob but gruesomely murder their victims on land and sea.
The number of attacks, abduction for hransom and killing peaked from January,2020.On the 26th of January, gunmen killed a police officer while abducting two sons of Bonny, -Mr Mina Jumbo and Lawrence Green.
On February 14,2020, sea pirates attacked a vessel belonging to Maesk,a Danish global shipping company and held the crew hostage for weeks.
Between March and December 2020, some of the recorded incidents included abduction of another Bonny son, Benjamin Mac -Pepple’s father. He was kidnapped and released after 2 weeks upon payment of ransom.But the criminals didn’t end their foul game there. Eight days after ransom was paid to release his father, Benjamin was kidnapped.
In a similar fashion, the kidnappers stormed Banigo village on September 12,2020, and took away 5 persons . They are Mr Sunny Hart, Daniel Sago,Robert Hart, Theophilus Ibiama, Thompson Micah Allison and Mr Jackmay. Three of them were shot while others sustained severe injuries.
One of the worse case scenarios of the Bonny waterways was the incident of 29th September,.Sea pirates attacked a boat going to Karr market from Bonny, abducted the occupants and a 3 months – old baby was thrown into the river along the Bonny-Andoni axis.
Since the year 2021 birthed, Bonny waterways and the kingdom have witnessed gory and unfortunate criminal activities supposedly perpetrated by unscrupulous Andoni neighbours in collaboration with deviant elements in Bonny.
A lot of young men and women have lost their lives to activities of unrelenting criminals , many have become orphans , widows , widowers and childless , but the menace goes on as nothing suggest any form of concrete plans in place to stem the tide of attacks in the area.
With no real or concrete plans available to check the spate of Insecurity in the area , the people’,s choice of taking their destinies in their own hands became inevitable.
Which is why Bonny Women groups in their numbers trooped out of their homes and congregated at the Bonny water front to seek the help of God in a situation that is seen as humanly helpless .
The women under the aegis of Foundation for Widows and the less priviedged (FOWALP) led by the founder, Mrs Dabota Daniella Jumbo prayed for the soul of Bonny at the Bonny waterfront and then marched to the popular Allison Square from where they walked through the hospital road to shell gate and then ended at the NLNG roundabout .
Speaking with current matters on why she ventured into such a noble but unsafe cause at this period of seroius security challenges,Jumbo said her personal experience with pirates and the pains the Bonny people particularly women and youths were made to go through everyday made her to lead the women to embark on the spiritual course.
“Bonny is no longer safe. Gunmen come in during the day and night to kidnap and kill people.Infact it is a daily thing now. There is no security in Bonny. Everyone is afraid. “
“We are defenceless. No one to help us., We sleep with our two eyes open. That is why we left our homes to pray. We believe in the supremacy of God. We believe in the efficacy of prayer.We believe that with God all things are possible. Only God can help us . But for the Covid-19,.The crowd would have been more than this as many women wanted to join the prayers.” she said.
Jumbo who is also a woman leader in her community said she believed that the issue of insecurity will be a thing of the past
Jumbo said the annual event of the Foundation holds towards the end of the first quarter of the year but the organisation decided to hold the programme between 11 January- 15 this year due to incessant attacks on Bonny.
Bonny is equally home to major oil multinational corporations .
The NLNG plant is in Bonny.Its subsidiary Bonny Gas Transport Limited is also in Bonny.
Apart from the NLNG,Shell,Agip and Exxon Mobil all have operational bases in Bonny. They provide adequate security for their facilities and their staff but not the people whose land hosts their facilities
A commuter who pleaded anonymous described the security situation as scarry and called on governmentt to come to the aid of the people of Bonny saying” it is suicidal nowadays to embark on flying boats to and from Bonny.
” Everyday we see or hear different stories on this sea route.It is not that the people doing this are faceless. They are well known as they come from communites, Recently one of the attackers was caught on sea and he confessed being a native of neighbouring Andoni Local Government Area. I don’t know what happened to him after that .Sometimes when they offload the boats,they kill anyone who has nothing to offer them. That is how wicked they are.
” Let government provide security for us. I know there was a time gunboats were provided by the Rivers State government.I don’t know what has happened to those boats. We see only NLNG sea trucks with good security. The criminals don’t attack them but attack only poor people .” she said.
