Trouble looms for sea pirates terrorizing the Bonny-Port Harcourt sea route as luck ran out of one of them when he was apprehended by the Marine Division of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) in Bonny Local Government Area of Rivers State.

Kristina Reports reliably gathered that the suspect identified as Clifford Dan George, a native of Asarama Community in Andoni LGA of Rivers State, has been moved to Port Harcourt on the orders of the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mukan.

There are fears amongst his accomplices that under intense interrogation he might unravel and rat out on them, stating names and other details that will lead to their arrest and busting of their operations.  

The Bonny River, which is the main sea route between Bonny Island and Port Harcourt, has been faced with the challenge of unabating sea pirates’ attacks on travelers, especially, as the yuletide season approaches.   

Kristina Reports further gathered that daredevil hoodlums attacked a passenger boat ferrying travelers from Port Harcourt to Bonny Island on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 night, killing one and injuring several others.

Unfortunately, one of the sea pirates was not so lucky as a collision between that of the travelers and the hoodlums threw him overboard and had to be rescued and detained by the residents of the nearby village where the incident happened just as his accomplices fled the scene leaving him behind.

Officer-in-charge of the Marine Division of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) in Bonny, Solomon Adeniyi, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), told Kristina Reports that it was residents of the village that assisted in apprehending the suspect and later handed him over to operatives of the Marine Police.

According to him, his men responded to a distress call from the community on the morning of Thursday, November 26, 2020 where they took custody of the suspect and rescued the passengers, who they brought safely to Bonny, adding that the injured among them were referred to the hospital for treatment.  

“The driver in question left Port Harcourt around after 6 O’clock in the evening. On his way coming – when he was approaching that tank side after Onne, that One-Man Village – that is where the sea pirates attacked him.”

“But their boat now collided with the sea pirates’ boat. The two boats collided. One of them was unfortunately thrown overboard. The one that was thrown overboard was held down by the villagers within the community there till the following day.”

The Marine Police chief, however, stated that the pilot of the attacked speedboat will be charged to court for criminal endangerment for putting the lives of the passengers at risk, stressing that he was operating outside approved timelines on the maritime corridor and without a passenger manifest.

“The boat union did not have any information because the boat sailed late without a manifest. It was at daybreak that they now called us and we now went to the village and arrested the suspect and also brought the passengers down to Bonny. Some of them were injured and we had to refer them to the hospital.”

“It was a 10 passenger boat but without a manifest we are not able to ascertain how many people boarded that boat because the boat loaded illegally at the Port Harcourt jetty. The suspect has been transferred to Port Harcourt and is currently in police custody.”

Communities around the sea route have been crying out to the authorities to ramp up action on securing the Bonny River and adjoining waterways given the spate of sea pirates’ attacks which have exposed travelers, especially, business people, to untold nightmare.

The criminals rob, rape, maim and sometimes kill their victims whenever they launch their attacks. In many instances, they discharge the passengers into the sea and leave with the boats and attached outboard engines thus causing the boat operatives to lose millions of naira used in purchasing the engines.

The intervention of the security agencies in the area, the Forward Operating Base of the Nigerian Navy, 146 Battalion of the Nigerian Army (a land component of the Operation Delta Safe (OPDS), the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), among others, have helped in checkmating the hoodlums with several successful operations.  

The challenge, however, has been the underfunding of the security agencies in the area, which has continued to hamper their optimal performance with regards to delivering on their mandate to secure Bonny LGA which currently has the highest concentration of high profile business entities in Nigeria.

Bonny Island is host to Africa’s foremost gas company, the Nigeria LNG;s liquefied natural gas plant, Shell Nigeria’s Bonny Oil and Gas Terminal (BOGT), ExxonMobil Nigeria’s Bonny River Terminal (BRT), among others, and these multinationals reportedly remit cumulatively over one trillion naira annually into the coffers of the Nigerian Government.

With such humongous revenue accruing from the area, stakeholders have continued clamouring for the President Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government to prioritize the security of the area. Unfortunately, the expected decisive intervention was yet to be seen.