Insecurity puts Rivers on tenterhooks, threatens investments

Despite its enormous investment prospects, oil-rich Rivers State is in the throes of losing its economic vigour if worsening insecurity is not urgently addressed, Obinna Nwaoku writes.

Port Harcourt, the administrative and commercial capital of Rivers State was, among other things, nicknamed Garden City because of its richness in greenery.

Besides the lush vegetation in the fifth-largest city in the country, multi-billion naira oil installations litter the length and breadth of the state, including two comatose oil refineries that have become cost centres draining billions of state funds, but without delivering commensurate service. The sheer volume of these installations, also earned the state the moniker of headquarters of oil operations, by industry players.

While black soot, a fallout of unregulated artisanal oil exploitation has foisted a reign of heart-wrenching health hazard on residents of the state for years, thereby compromising their quality of life, insecurity has gradually seized the state by the jugular.

These twin evils, especially insecurity, apart from despoiling the ambiance of the state environmentally, and socially, are also setting the stage for economic woes as fresh investments are only trickling in.

Before now, Rivers State was notorious for being a haven for cultists, as well as a hotbed for gang lords. But the resultant spike in criminal activities was constantly checked by the administration of former governor former Governor Chibuike Amaechi, using the stick approach to chase the warlords out of the state between 2007 and 2012.

The immediate past governor, Nyesom Wike, adopted the carrot approach where the errant boys who returned to the fold during the 2015 elections, were settled and cautioned against constituting a nuisance, which they partially complied with.

However, when the approach failed to yield the desired result, Wike in March 2018, assented to the Rivers State Neighbourhood Safety Corps Law No. 8 of 2018, during which he explained that the move was to improve security in the state.

equally assented to the Rivers State Secret Cult and Similar Activities (Prohibition) (Amendment) Law No 6 of 2018, and the Rivers State Kidnap (Prohibition) (Amendment) N0. 2 Law No 7 of 2018.

All these steps, according to Wike, were to support security agencies with intelligence and information to effectively fight crime and make the state safer.

Sadly, despite all these efforts, the much-desired result has not been achieved. The sudden resurgence of these gang lords and their stooges in the state, and the fight between two notorious gangs, the Icelanders and the Greenlanders, lends credence to the failure on the part of the government.

In May 2023, a police officer was reportedly shot dead at a checkpoint around the Emohua axis of the East-West road, by gunmen. The following month, gunmen suspected to be cultists, killed six residents of Abarikpo in Ahoada East, and Odiereke–Ubie Community in Ahoada West Local Council of the state.

On August 11, gunmen killed two soldiers and kidnapped a construction worker in the State. The two soldiers were attached to the Ekango-Ogboloma Adada road project in Abual Odual Council being executed by the Rivers State government.

Also, on August 13, one Mr. Okechukwu Nwonodi was shot dead by gunmen in the Rundele community in Emohua Local Council of the state, and houses, including one belonging to a widow, were set ablaze, following disagreements that arose from activities of illegal oil bunkering in the area.

The same month, precisely on August 26, 2023, gunmen reportedly killed a police inspector and carted away his rifle and beret around the Olu-Obasanjo axis of Port Harcourt City Local Council.

Civilians have also been at the receiving end of violence unleashed by men of The Nigeria Police, the latest being the extrajudicial killing of a 41-year-old father of three, Oluforo Peterside, by a trigger-happy police officer, in the presence of his three children and wife.

However, the killing of the former Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Ahoada East Local Council, Superintendent of Police (SP), Bako Angbashim, by a notorious gang, was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

Before the present Commissioner of Police, Nwonyi Emeka, was deployed to the state, and the subsequent killing of SP Bako, there were rising cases of kidnapping, armed robbery, bloodletting, gangsterism, and rape, among others in some parts of the state, especially the Ahoada axis and Emohua Local Council.

The gang lords in these areas, “conquered domains” and terrorised residents, evicting them from their communities with little, or no resistance from security agencies.

Bako, a gallant police officer, helped to combat insecurity in Ogoniland and fought perpetrators of the Omoku conflicts in Ogba/Egebama /Ndoni Local Council of the state to a standstill. His exploits and abilities compelled the State Police Command to transfer him to Ahoada Division, where he battled the notorious cult gangs that terrorised the area.

Bako made a strong impression by engaging the gangs in combat from one jungle to the next. He was, however, killed on September 8, on his way back from a battle against the dreaded gang.

Irked by the death of the brave officer, Governor Siminilayi Fubara, declared the gang leader, David Okpara, alias 2Baba wanted, while also placing a N100m bounty on his head.

A few days after the declaration, gang members numbering over 10 released a video on social media, threatening to launch more attacks on anyone who crosses their path.
Activities of the cultists and persistent insecurity in the state over the whole have not gone unnoticed within the local and international communities.

While local investors are thinking twice before considering investing in the state, it would be recalled that between November 2022 and February this year, the United Kingdom (UK) issued travel warnings to its citizens. Rivers State featured prominently on the list of troubled states.

The UK government urged its citizens to be careful with movement and activities in the state, citing forms of insecurity like kidnapping, and rioting, among others as being rampant.

For a researcher and development expert, Sunny Dada, the current spate of insecurity in the state is because Wike, who managed the boys was no longer in office, adding that Fubara does not have the same clout as Wike in reining in the outlaws.

Dada further alleged that the present administration does not have an independent security vote, stating that the security vote that Fubara is presently managing is under Wike’s administration, and until a new appropriation bill is passed to approve the administration’s security vote, Fubara’s will still be managing what was left for him.

While pointing out that no investors will invest in an insecure terrain, Dada said the onslaught by the military against oil T, and the end of the political season may have stirred the current wave of insecurity as the boys would not live with empty stomachs.

Stanley Nsofor, a security expert, agrees with Dada that insecurity will drive away investors in the state.

He said: “Once a state is termed insecure, a lot of companies and investors leave, just as some people will relocate to other places outside the state. Due to rising insecurity in the state, a lot of companies are leaving, and it is affecting us negatively because workers retrenched by the companies might resort to crime because of joblessness.”

In the recent past, the Emohua Local Council has remained a perfect example of what a local council should not be as far as the security of lives and property is concerned.

Specifically, residents of Rundele Community and its environs have been living in fear over the activities of a 25-year-old notorious suspected kidnapper and cultist, Nwodi Amadi, who allegedly kidnaps, maims people, and burnt down houses of rival cult gangs. This has led to uncountable reprisals.

“Amadi holds sway there (Emuoha). His specialty was kidnapping and armed robbery. He terrorised the East-West road, diverting commuters to nearby forests and taking them hostage for ransom,” according to a community leader.

Amadi and his gang became so dreaded that the council chairman, Chidi Lloyd, placed a bounty on him and his gang just as the police declared them wanted.
Also, there were frequent gang clashes between the Junior Vikings Confraternity (JVC) and Iceland cults in the urban centres, especially flashpoints like the Diobu area, which has been under constant fear.

Shortly after CP Emeka arrived in the state on August 30, the state command launched the Rivers Zero Crime Initiative Campaign, where the police boss vowed to sanitise the state.

He informed that within the second week of his resumption, operatives neutralised the dreadful Nwodi and his blood-tasty gang; arrested 66 suspects for various offenses, and rescued 20 kidnap victims, while 18 suspects involved in violent crimes were killed and 33 firearms, 17 vehicles, one boat, and 18 magazines, as well as 169 ammunition, recovered.

Be that as it may, soon after SP Bako’s death, the Ahoada area of the state became a sore thumb needing the state police command to beam its searchlight on the area, following complaints of violent crimes such as cultism, kidnapping, rape, etc, emanating from there.

Gang leaders, who ascribed to themselves the title of “general,” dominated the communities and allegedly imposed a monthly levy of N5,000 per villager. Failure to remit the money was viewed as romancing death, even as the criminals set up camps in the forests from where they administered territories and collected “taxes.”

According to a community member, there were constant clashes between rival cult groups fighting for territorial dominance, especially between Icelanders and Greenlanders.

After Governor Fubara announced the suspension of Eze Cassidy Ikegbidi Eze Igbu Akoh II indefinitely for acts of complicity in ceding control of his territory to Gift and his gang to freely operate and carry out their criminal activities, he maintained that the state cannot fold its arms and allow criminals to hold the people, hostage, vowing that the war would be taken to them.

While Zuokumor Richard has been redeployed to the division, where Bako was killed, security experts, stressed that with Bako’s death, there is the likelihood that a cult clash between Iceland and Greenlanders will resurface because those who surrendered their arms due to pressure from the government and accepted amnesty may become insecure and forced to resume fighting.

Efe Wanogho, a security expert, wants the state police command to deploy more intelligence-gathering techniques in its operations and move away from rote policing.
He also wants the police and other security agencies to review their strategies and ensure that gang leaders like “2Baba and his me are captured and brought to book.

He said: “The killing of SP Bako will affect the morale of other officers in that police division; it will be difficult for the officers to go about their duties the way they used to, but for their confidence to be restored, the police need to do something to bring the perpetrators to book.”

A public affairs analyst, Livingstone Wechie, advocated the mobilisation of neighborhood watch groups in communities to ferret information from the grassroots.
He said: “I wish to urge the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, which has taken proactive steps to arrest these killers and go further to ensure that community policing and local vigilante structure across the state are fully reactivated.

“Contemporarily, policing and security management systems cannot succeed without effective collaboration with the local vigilante and the citizenry policing fitting into the scheme of things.”

Another security expert, Charles Inko-Tariah, advised the police to focus on mopping up arms, emphasising that doing the arms is not just by calling for amnesty, but by creating higher intelligence and surveillance.

“Also, the government of the state should revisit the Rivers State Neighbourhood Safety Corps Law No 8 of 2018, which provides for citizen participation in the security of lives and property in the state, and make it active and potent.

A former Nigeria Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) National President, Sofiri Bobo Brown, noted that the approach of singling out a traditional ruler for punishment over a security breach in his domain should change.

He said: “We should recognise that security is a collective responsibility. Traditional rulers alone do not have any apparatus recognised by law to enable them to manage security. Except as a team, that team includes the DSS, NSCDC, and the traditional structures within their localities.

“So, the government should encourage a re-engineering of the idea of who is responsible. So, in each community, all of these structures can come together and work as one. And if there should be any failure there should be consequences on all of them, and not just one person.”