MILITARY authorities in Rivers State have named suspected arrow-heads in last week’s mayhem in Port Harcourt, the state capital, as Ateke Tom and Soborno George. The duo head rival militia groups allegedly fighting for the control of “bunkering,” activities in the state.
Head of the Joint Task Force (JTF) and Commander of the 2nd Amphibious Brig.-Gen. Samuel Salihu, told journalists yesterday that Tom and George took their supremacy contest to the streets and unleashed mayhem on the residents.
He said that Ateke Tom of the Niger Delta Vigilante in collaboration with other cult groups attempted to upstage George’s group to gain control of “bunkering” business in Port Harcourt.
According to him, three weeks ago, there was a purported peace meeting in Okrika, where Tom and leaders of other groups allegedly renounced violence.
Salihu said that under the guise of reconciliation, the groups decided to form a single body, adding that having achieved that, they moved to invade Port Harcourt in a bid to overwhelm George’s organisation to control oil theft in the city.
The JTF also said the Rivers State lawmaker arrested by the State Security Services (SSS) and anyone discovered to be aiding and abetting the two cult groups would be prosecuted.
A security source told The Guardian that the lawmaker, Otelamaba Daniel Amachree’s house at the legislative quarters in Port Harcourt and another in his native Buguma Town were searched by the SSS operatives who are investigating if he had links with the gunmen who wreaked havoc in the state.
Amachree’s election posters were allegedly found inside one of the vehicles recovered from some cult groups.
After eight days of sporadic and indiscriminate shooting in Port Harcourt where scores of people were killed, calm is gradually returning to the city, following the deployment of the JTF troops in some major flash-points.
Salihu told journalists in his office that the lawmaker, representing Asari Toru Constituency II, was arrested because incriminating things were found against him.
He said: “We have found his posters in two places where militants and cult members were and we accosted him to explain what his posters were doing in militant vehicles. His arrest is an indication that nobody is above the law. Anybody found to be aiding and abetting the militants and cult members will be brought to book.”
Salihu said the Presidency, the Chief of Defence Staff and the state government were not happy over the prevailing lawlessness in Port Harcourt. To this end, he said the JTF would remain in flash-points in Port Harcourt until law and order is restored.
“What we are doing is an asymmetric warfare in the sense that the boys are faceless. They drink with us, they eat with us and they are in our midst. And until they carry arms you don’t know they are cult members,” he said.
Similarly, the JTF spokesman, Major Musa Sagir, explained that scores of suspected cult members have been arrested as well as arms and ammunition seized from them.
Among the arms recovered are two general purpose machine guns capable of firing 1,000 bullets in one minute, nine AK-47 rifles, two sub-machine guns, a Beretta pistol, two-locally made pistols, a pump action rifle, three locally-made guns and dynamites. They also retrieved a large quantity of ammunition ranging from 7.62mm special, cartridges to 5.56mm. He said that some of the arms were found in refuse dumps where the suspected cult members hid them in Port Harcourt.
Sagir said the JTF was working assiduously to identify the major sources of supply of weapons to the cult groups.
According to him, the mayhem in Port Harcourt would have been worse but for the preemptive steps taken by the JTF to deploy troops to some parts of the city earlier in the week.
He debunked allegations that the security agencies have sympathy for one of the factions. He also declared that if the state government was found to be aiding and abetting any of the groups, the JTF would make this known to the appropriate authorities.
The visit of the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Andrew Owoye Azazi, and the acting Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro last weekend to Port Harcourt and their subsequent directives to the heads of the security agencies, contributed to the relative calm now in the city.
Men of the JTF were deployed on Saturday to some parts of Port Harcourt in a bid to calm the situation. The troops began house-to- house search and arrested suspected cult members involved in the crisis.
Similarly, the notorious Emenike /Okija junction along Ikwerre Road, where the bandits attempted to launch attack on the Mile 1 Police Station, now hosts JTF officers.