The Rivers State Police command on Saturday said Niger Delta Militants were not responsible for recent killings and shootings in some parts of the state.
On Friday morning, gunmen shot and killed a Lebanese businessman in his home in Port Harcourt, barely an hour before a police station at Elekahia in another part of the city, came under attack.
But the Commissioner of Police, Rivers State command, Mr. Felix Ogbaudu, told Sunday Punch that criminals were responsible for the attacks.
He said it was wrong for people to attribute every attack in the area to militants, saying that based on investigations, the Lebanese was shot by armed robbers and not militants as widely speculated.
Said the commissioner, �People should not attribute everything that happens to militants. For instance the Lebanese who was killed yesterday was not shot by militants.
�The shootings in some part of Port Harcourt in recent times have not been by militants. For a long time now, the militants have not attacked anybody. What has been happening are perpetrated by a few youths who belong to cult groups.
�These boys now take hostage for the purpose of making money and that has nothing to do with the struggle for the rights of the Niger Delta people.
�We must begin to draw a line between the activities of militants who are involved in the Niger Delta struggle and cultists who take hostages for the purpose of making money.�
He said that people had been abducted in Anambra and in Ebonyi stressing that if similar incidents occurred in Rivers State or any other Niger Delta state, they would have been blamed on militants.
He referred to the killing of a Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation�s manager in Kaduna State and said that investigation has shown that hoodlums carried out the attack.
Continuing, Ogbaudu said, �The militants have come out to say enough of the rubbish. They have publicly renounced violence and Ateke Tom and the others were on newspapers and on television the other day to tell the world that they are no longer fighting and taking hostage.
�Criminals now do most of the things happening and we cannot blame the militants for what they have not done.�
But the Chief Press Secretary to the Rivers State Governor, Mr. Emmah Okah said that the government was against every form of violence and crime no matter who was involved.
Okah, who made government�s position known to Sunday Punch in a telephone interview, noted that no situation was enough to warrant people to take laws into their hands.
He said, �Although we are not aware of the circumstances that have led to the shootings, but for whatever it is, it is condemnable. The government shall continue to stand against criminality and violent vices in any part of the state.
�Government has made efforts toward creating employment for those who show genuine willingness to quite crime.
�We use this opportunity to call on repentant cultists and militants willing to be rehabilitated to take advantage of this window of opportunity to empower themselves economically so that they can live normal lives and be useful to themselves and to society.�
Attempts to speak to the leader of the Niger Delta Vigilante Movement, Mr. Ateke Tom, failed, as calls by our correspondent to his three mobile phones did not succeed.