By Olawale Lamina
No fewer than 10 maritime travellers were abducted by elements suspected to be sea pirates in the early hours of Monday morning, along the Bonny – Port Harcourt waterway. The latest incident will add to plethora of kidnap cases on the same route.
Although the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Olatunji Disu reacted to media enquiries that he had yet to be briefed about the development as at the time of filing this report, the district Chairman, MARITIME Workers Union of Nigeria Rivers State district, Israel Pepple confirmed the incident to journalists, stating that, “it’s not a rumour, it is real. 10 persons have been kidnapped this morning coming from Bonny to Port Harcourt. We’ve reported to the security agencies.”
This is not the first time such as incident would take place along the Bonny – Port Harcourt waterways, indeed, there had been series of abduction of persons with no solution in sight, despite efforts by security operatives.
Moved by perennial kidnapping incidents on the Rivers State waterways, just last week stakeholders under the umbrella of Concerned Citizens of Bonny raised the alarm over the increasing pirate attacks and abduction on the Bonny waterway.
They lamented that five persons were abducted on August 21 followed by another incident involving a speedboat passengers on August 24. The trend has been a recurring decimal year in year out.
President of the group, Amasenibo Stephen Hart, who spoke at the recent forum in Port Harcourt expressed dramatically dismay over the safety of travellers on the Bonny sea route.
“We, the concerned citizens of Bonny, are worried and terrified about the ongoing abduction of travellers by sea pirates along the Bonny waterway,” he had said, while recalling that, at least more 15 innocent people had been kidnapped in the past few months with high demand for ransom payments.
He had observed regrettably by alleging that the Nigerian Navy failed in its responsibility to provide adequate protection for sea travellers and called for stronger security measures, especially around the Onne axis of the river.
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