At least one person died and eight were injured as more than a thousand youths, many of them ex-militants, today took to the streets of Yenagoa, capital of Bayelsa State, to protest against Governor Seriake Dickson’s administration in a dispute around a pipeline contract.
The protesters accused the governor of running a “repressive and insensitive administration.”
Participants said one person died and there were several eight injuries following a clash between demonstrators and armed police.
The protesters are upset with Governor Dickson’s reported plan to hijack the multimillion oil pipeline surveillance contract that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) had earmarked for oil bearing communities in the state.
The protest was organized by ex-militants, but included other sympathetic groups, among them the Physically Challenged Persons. The protest started at the Tombia-Etegwe roundabout soon after 6 a.m. Commuters were stranded and commercial activities brought to a halt.
More tag nine vehicles were vandalized in the ensuing melee. Markets stalls and business outlets, including the popular Camp Murphy relaxation establishment, were vandalized.
The arrival of a reinforcement of police officers helped contain the chaos. Some members of the Presidential Amnesty Implementation Committee also arrived to plead for calm by the ex-militant youths.
A witness said one John Opotobo, an ex-militant youth from Southern Ijaw local government area of the state, was killed in the fracas.
The spokesman for the Bayelsa Police Command, Butswat Ansim, denied reports of the death of an ex-militant. He said, “the police only shot tear gas canisters to disperse them.The police did not shoot live cartridges.”
He confirmed that six of the protesting ex-militants were arrested.
An ex-militant leader, Eris Paul, popularly known as General Ogunboss, said the angry ex-militants staged the protest due to the wrong policies of the Dickson administration in the state and the plot by the governor to hijack a multibillion naira NNPC pipeline surveillance contract meant for the communities in the state.
According to Ogunboss,”aside from the numerous show of incompetence by the present administration, Dickson is trying to hijack the job meant for the oil bearing communities in the state. Most of the South-South states have signed the allocation of the surveillance contract but Dickson is insisting that the job be awarded to a self-styled company known as Izon Ibe, a security outfit that we don’t know.”
He added: “Dickson should concentrate on the use of state allocation and internally generated revenue to advance the good of the state rather than hijacking jobs coming to communities.”
Contacted on the development, the governor’s chief press secretary, Daniel Markson-Iworiso, dismissed the claim of the ex-militants as “parochial”.
