The Federal Government yesterday ordered the deployment of more troops to Ogboinbiri community in Southern Ijaw local government area of Bayelsa State. This followed the humiliating defeat suffered in the hands of militants by men of the Nigerian Army at the Ogboinbiri flow station belonging to Italian oil company, Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC) on Sunday.
In Rivers, the Deputy Governor of the State, Engineer Tele Ikuru, lamented yesterday that over 80 percent of businesses in Port Harcourt had closeddown over the attacks by youths on their staff.
The decision to deploy the troops follows the take-over of the flow station by the militants who reportedly killed over 11 soldiers in the battle for the control of the facility which produces over 40,000 barrels of oil per day. There was no official confirmation of the casualty figures.
THISDAY checks revealed that the eight gun boats loaded with over 200 soldiers left Warri and Yenagoa for Ogboinbiri yesterday in the bid to recover the facility and retrieve the bodies of soldiers reportedly killed and those held as Prisoners of War (PoW) by the militants who are still occupying the flow station.
Meanwhile, NAOC has raised alarm that 16 of its workers working aboard the flow station have been held as �prisoners of war� by the militants. Agip said there were 51 soldiers and 24 local workers aboard the facility when it was over run by militants on Sunday.
The men who are indigenes of the area may have been caught in the crossfire between the soldiers and the militants.
At press time, it could not be ascertained if any of the workers was killed or wounded during the eight-hour battle that dislodged the soldiers from the facility.
The 16 were left by NAOC to take care of the flow station following the evacuation of the facility company soon after nine militants were killed by soldiers last week Tuesday.
Even as more troops have been deployed to the spot, the owners of the facility are said to have pleaded with the government to engage the boys in dialogue instead resorting to a military option.
The pleading of the company, a source said, was predicated on the premise that other facilities owned by the company may be attacked by the boys.
Men of the Joint Task Force (JTF) had, Tuesday last week, killed nine militants at the Ogboinbiri flow station. Angered at the action, the militants reportedly wrote a letter promising to engage the JTF in a battle. In the reprisal mission which took place on Sunday, the militants had successfully dislodged the soldiers from the facility.
In Rivers, the Deputy Governor has called for intervention of local communities to put hostage-taking in check. According to him, the situation has accentuated the unemployment problem of the state as well as slowed down the economic growth of the state.
Ikuru stated this while playing host to the Eminent Peoples Forum in Port Harcourt where he insisted that hostage taking and other allied criminal activities were exerting a negative pressure on the intention of the state to grow a robust economy.
�Rivers State has become a carcass of itself; go to Trans-Amadi and you will see that about 80 percent of companies have closed down, not because of their inability to manage their business properly but because of the demonic activities of our youths working in concert with those from outside,� Ikuru said.
The Deputy Governor told the group that some of the contracts that were awarded by the State were yet to commence because of the fear for the safety of the expatriates engaged to execute the contracts.
He particularly regretted the inability of the contractors handling the Trans Kalabari highway, drainage projects, rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt International Airport and water reticulation projects in the state who had to pull out of site owing to threat of kidnap of their workers.
To him, the problem has become so hydra headed that it required a multi-dimensional approach which he assured that on the part of government, they were putting together a team to work out modalities of reintegrating the restive you-ths into normal society.
He said the closest example of avoidable problem hostage taking was taking manifested in the stoppage of production by Indorama which had employed many Niger Delta youths before they were forced to close down because of incessant kidnap of their staff.
Earlier in his speech, Chairman of the Forum, Chief Philitus Warmate expressed the readiness of his group to address the issue and commended the federal government for the release of Mujahid Dokubo Asari which he said would help to stem restiveness.
Jun192007