Many have wondered with understandable curiosity the constant recurrence of Abalamabie in reports about kidnap incidents in Bonny Local Government Area of Rivers State. The reasons for this geo-location mainstreaming may not be farfetched as the community has become synonymous with the notion of the ‘new Bonny Town’.
Abalamabie is one of over 200 communities and settlements that make up Bonny Local Government Area. It is bounded southward by the Atlantic Ocean, northward by Oguede Community, westward by Akiama and eastward by Andoni LGA. It stretches from around the Federal Polytechnic of Oil and Gas area down to Longjohn, a community bounding the Andoni River.
Though the axis of Bonny Town where it is located also has Akiama, Oguede, Coconut Estate, and Bagg-Jumbo Communities, the area has increasingly been referred to as ‘Abalamabie’, ostensibly, by non-natives who may not discern the differences in nomenclature between geographical locations and the relevant authorities have not also done enough to delineate the area for easy identification.
Landmarks in that axis include the Federal Polytechnic of Oil and Gas, Nigerian Navy Forward Operating Base (FOB), Bonny Vocational Centre (BVC), Ibanise Hall, Bonny Kingdom Information Centre; the NLNG Waterwells; the Model Primary School, Kings and Queens Secondary School, Bonny Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (BOCCIMA), Community Secondary School (CSS), DAH-Palladium Hub, JenPac Hotel, Elizabeth Suites, Department of State Services (DSS) Office, Valerie Shopping Mall, T-Lounge, and Atlantic Royal Suites, among others.
There is also the phenomenon of development spread in that area which has been amplified with the ease of land prospecting by natives and non-natives. In the last 20 years, the Abalamabie axis of Bonny Main Town has witnessed rapid infrastructure development such that it appears residents have abandoned the old township which runs from Coal Beach to Hospital Road. From shopping malls to hotels to educational institutions to business places, the area has become a beehive of economic activities, so has its residential profile upscaled.
Aside developmental spread, the area is riddled with waterfronts that connect to various sea routes that either take travelers to the Coal Beach, the major point of ingress and egress from Bonny Island; or to the various villages that comprise Bonny LGA. These include the Akiama waterfront, Coconut Estate waterfront, Oguede waterfront, Abraham-Hart waterfront, Ulo-Oju Hart waterfront, Longjohn waterfront, and the Bagg-Jumbo waterfront.
These connect to a network of creeks that link up with the T-junction that takes travelers to Dan-Jumbo, Banigo, Greens, and Dema-Abbey, among others on the East; and Burukiri, Epelema, Coconut Estate, Orupiri and Bonny Main Town on the West. An aspect of the route from the T-junction also connects to Polokiri and swerves into the Andoni River leading to Oyorokoto, Asarama, Ajakajak, and Ataba, among others in Andoni LGA on the North.
Also of strategic importance is the huge reserve of tropical rain forests in the area stretching from behind Longjohn to Bagg-Jumbo and Coconut Estate to Greens. These have the positive potentials for logging, wood carving, real estate development, furniture making, and so forth; including the negative value of providing cover for fugitives on the run as was witnessed recently when a man who allegedly stabbed his brother to death in Akiama hid inside the forest for days before youths of the community infiltrated the area and apprehended and handed him over to the Police.
Of utmost importance, however, is the increasing number of high networth individuals now residing in the area. From technocrats to community leaders to entrepreneurs to politicians, the area has become some sort of hybrid for ‘men of timber and calibre’ in Bonny LGA. Also, the percentage of high profile residents such as senior company officials have also been rising among those living on rent or lease in the area.
From the foregoing, it is obvious why the area has remained attractive for the purposes of egress any time the daredevil kidnappers struck. Not only have they successfully grabbed their quarries from the area but have also left without being apprehended and these unencumbered escapades have emboldened them to persist in their criminal ways.
The security agencies, no doubt, have been both reactive and proactive in responding to the security threats that have bedeviled the area in recent times. One of such is the setting up of a checkpoint at the Coconut Estate waterfront, deployment of visible policing as a pre-emptive strategy and increased surveillance of the area but this has amounted to little or nothing as evidenced in the successes of these daredevil criminals every time they have made incursions in the area.
It is now obvious with the most recent incident that the security agencies have not fully mapped the geographical area called Bonny LGA, taking into account all ingress and egress points, crime spots, strategic intersections and where they lead to, and several other indices critical to efficient security management of the area. In the same vein, it is also important to sustain the drive to overhaul the security assets available to the security agencies such as arms and ammunition, soft and hard body vehicles (cars, armoured personnel carriers, gunboats, among others), surveillance gadgets such as drones, listening devices, long distance binoculars, and so on.
Another important aspect is stakeholder management. Political, traditional, religious, social and corporate entities and individuals have to be strategically engaged with a view to fashioning out a template that is holistic to drive an all-inclusive security management system of the area. Last time, it was the youths of Bonny who took to the streets to fight off the criminals and chase them out of town, a development which reinforced the need for neighbourhood volunteers. In other places, such ad hoc arrangements set up and managed by the local governments in synergy with the security agencies have been helpful in intelligence gathering, dispute resolution, awareness creation, surveillance provision and suspect identification.
It is trite to signpost the precarious location of the DAH-Palladium Hub. It is ensconced between the Ring Road, the Abalamabie Road and one other yet-to-be-named road. Such remote location with easy getaways for would-be criminals remains a disincentive for business to thrive at the event centre and all other adjoining business places there.
The relevant authorities led by the chief security officer of Bonny LGA, David Irimagha, the heads of the various security agencies, and others should consider strategically emplacing security outposts that have sweeping cover for all the waterfronts, especially, the remotely located ones such as Macaulay, Akiama, Coconut Estate, Oguede, Abraham-Hart, Longjohn and Bagg-Jumbo and all the seemingly inconsequential ones like the Ulo-Oju Hart, which aided the recent kidnappers escape.
Residents of the area have confirmed that the kidnappers who used the place on Sunday, July 11, 2021, also used it some months ago to escape when they were chased by Bonny youths. Additionally, they highlighted the waterfront after the fallen bridge at Oguede as porous, aiding hoodlums to easily access Abalamabie and escape through there. The security agencies need to beam their searchlight on the waterfront between Oguede and Abraham-Hart Community where suspicious clandestine activities including late night berthing of boats are said to be going on there. Appeals have been made for a military checkpoint to be sited there in order to secure that area.
With the commencement of Train 7, which is anticipated to provide 12,000 direct jobs and 50,000 indirect jobs, there is an urgent need to bridge the security lacuna given the fact that economic bubble is a precursor to crime. The general apprehension pervading the island is an indication that all hands have to be on deck if the task of securing and assuring the safety of residents, sustenance of businesses, and a peaceful atmosphere is to be achieved.
Thanks for this great footage and banquet of geographic placements, please let the council and Bonny community have and internal security master plan that will work and walk with the resident security agents because of egress and ingress routes pls let the resident companies be part of surveillance with proper gudgets, this is Grand Bonny we are talking about it’s Kingdom. Am ready to work with all concern .thanks God bless