The people of Amadi-Ama Community in Port Harcourt Local Government Area of Rivers State have blocked ferries servicing the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) from inbound and outbound sailing at the company’s jetty in Port Harcourt.

The Integrated Supply Base (ISB) jetty is part of the facilities at the company’s Corporate Head Office (CHO), which is jointly hosted by Amadi-Ama and Ogbum-nu-Abali Communities by Eastern Bypass, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

The Community blocked the Amadi-Ama Creek in the early hours of Sunday, January 21, 2024 accusing the company’s ferries of causing the drowning of one their kinsmen, Precious Imabibo, when his canoe capsized while on a fishing expedition.

An eyewitness, who preferred anonymity, told Kristina Reports that the two ferries, a surfer operated by Bouygues Nigeria Ltd, and a catamaran, Confidence III, operated by Miden Systems Limited, were turned back and had to sail back to Bonny Island at about 9am on Sunday.

He said the community is alleging that “an NLNG boat caused their boat to capsize resulting in the drowning of one person”.

“We entered NLNG boat 7am from Bonny to Port Harcourt. We got to Amadi-Ama Community where the community people used their canoe to block the creek refusing us passage to the jetty.”

“They are alleging that yesterday (Saturday, January 20, 2024) NLNG boat capsized their boat and they lost someone.”

“We have been on the sea for more than one hour 20 minutes, we are still there.”

The source informed that attempts at negotiating with community failed and both ferries were commandeered to returned back to Bonny, adding that the corpse of the dead man was recovered on Sunday morning and taken to the NLNG ISP jetty.

“They are trying to negotiate with them to allow us pass. We were told that they even carried the corpse to NLNG jetty in Port Harcourt. Yes, we are still on the sea. Three gunboats, the Surfer and Confidence III.”

Checks by Kristina Reports indicate that the sail involving the two boats arrived Amadi-Ama by 9:05am and departed from Amadi-Ama by 10:55am enroute Bonny and arrived about 12.30pm.

Efforts by Kristina Reports to reach the NLNG to get its reaction to the incident was yet unsuccessful as at the time of this report as an enquiry sent by email to the company’s Head of Media Relations was yet to be responded to.