After several months of reprieve, Port Harcourt city, Rivers State, lost its peace once again, as rival cult groups engaged themselves in a free-for-all that left eight dead.
The renewed clash between two warring groups allegedly led by Soboma George and Farah Dogogo, left residents of the oil city scampering for safety.
The fighting, according to report, started around NPA dock yard extended to Njemanze, Borokiri, Nembe Waterfronts and other parts of the state capital. The cultists were said to have freely detonated dynamites and engaged themselves with sophisticated weapons of war.
Most residents in the affected areas had to scamper to other parts of Port Harcourt for safety.
Speaking on the development, the Army PRO and spokesman of the Joint Task Force in the state, Lieutenant Col Sagir Musa said men of the Joint Task Force (JTF) later engaged the rampaging cultists in a shooting range around Nembe water front, which left some of them dead.
He could not give the exact death toll but he said he had been getting calls on corpses allegedly floating on the water. He urged residents of the state not to panic as the situation had been brought under control. He added that the struggle for territorial control would be at the root of the crisis among the cult groups in the river rine part of the state.
�What happened last night was an inter cult clash. Boys came looking for Soboma George�s boys. Our patrol team engaged them at Nembe Waterside and NPA Dock Yard. Though they suffered casualty but we don�t know the number. People have been calling to say they saw corpses floating. People should not panic as the situation is under control,� Sagir said.
It would be recalled that the two groups first clashed in Abonnema on Tuesday. An incident which left about four dead, including a soldier. Just when many thought the situation had come under control with the intervention of security operatives it sprang up again this time at Harrison on Friday morning. About two persons allegedly lost their lives in the renewed clash at Harris town in Degema local government area between the two cult groups.
The latest incident on Friday night caused panic and tension among residents of the state capital. �We did not sleep in this area. The sounds of guns were just all over. Those who could come out that night ran to other places. But we were just praying to God to spare our lives.� a resident of Njemanze said. An agency report claimed that 10 people sustained gunshot wounds in the clashes and were brought to a clinic operated by French aid group Doctors Without Borders last night, Alex Thomson, a security official at the facility, said in an interview yesterday.
Soldiers moved into the Borokiri area soon after the fighting started and the gang members fled, said Lieutenant- Colonel Sagir Musa, a spokesman for the government’s joint military task force in the Rivers State. Only one person was hurt, he said.
The rival gangs are led by Sogboma George and Prince Farah, who are wanted by the Rivers State government for kidnapping and involvement in other criminal activities, police spokeswoman Rita Abbey said.
Attacks by The Move-ment for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, a Nigerian militant group, have halted about 20 per cent of Nigeria’s production since 2006 and helped push oil prices to record highs.
Aug32008