A week after the state police command prevented SRM from staging a rally in the Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state,an incident that led to the shooting of Senator Magnus Abe, who was flown to London for medical treatment last Sunday night.
At least two young men were shot yesterday morning during an eight-hour shooting-spree that prevented an All Progressives Congress, APC, and Save Rivers Movement, SRM, rally billed from holding at Bori, the headquarters of Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Some residents of Bori told journalists that they were woken up in the middle of night by sporadic gun shots, which lasted from 2a.m. till about 5.30a.m. on Sunday.
The shooting continued until 9am even after policemen had arrived at the area, sources at the scene said.
The two wounded youths, who were not identified, were said to be in critical hospital in Port Harcourt.
According to resident of Bori, the gunshots initially came from the direction of the express road and continued up till 3a.m. and then subsided.
They said the shooting resumed at about 5.30a.m., this time more intense and appeared to come from the direction of All Saints Cathedral, proposed venue of the rally.
“From about 5.30a.m. the bursts of gunfire were horrific. Loud gunshots rang out from both ends of the town; from the right side and from the left side. Residents of the town were woken up by sounds of gunshots,” a resident who did not want his name mentioned said.
Another resident alleged that the exchange of gunshots came from political thugs loyal to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as well as those of the APC, which wanted the rally to hold.
He said: “We have heard gunshots in Bori before at the height of political crisis, but the one of today was very scary.
“You can tell so many guns were being fired sporadically. We heard some of the young men, who were shooting moving up and down Hospital Road, shouting: ‘APC cannot hold a rally in Khana. No way. Rivers State is PDP. We will not allow APC to come home and cause trouble for us.’”
Another resident explained that the heaviest shooting took place between 9a.m. and 9.30a.m. and was targeted at some top Rivers State government officials, who came to the area at the time.
The officials include the Deputy Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Leyee Kwanee; Secretary to the State Government, Feyii George and the Chief of Staff to Government House, Tony Okocha.
According to the residents, the policemen present at the event did not intervene or prevent the political thugs from continuing with their shooting spree.
The government officials rushed into their cars when the shooting was intense and drove through a pathway from where they connected the East West Road and escaped, eyewitnesses said.
About 11.30a.m., the entrance to the premises of the All Saints Cathedral, the venue of the rally, was barricaded with 10 light police trucks, with armed regular and mobile policemen strategically stationed around the area.
Not less than 30 armed policemen were on guard. Policemen mounted check points on both sides leading to the Anglican Church. There were five check points before entering Bori from Yeghe town, a neighbouring community.
Speaking to journalists, Kwanee, condemned the inaction of the police during the shooting that prevented the rally from holding.
He said: “It is condemnable that the police did nothing while the shooting lasted. The political thugs shot sporadically for hours without police intervention. And no arrest has been made. We question the action of the policemen that are on ground in Bori.
“We had to run for our lives when the shooting became very intense. The Secretary to the State Government and the Chief of Staff to the governor were also there with me at the venue of the rally that has been violently disrupted by sponsored political thugs.”
The Rivers State Chapter of the PDP however blamed the violence that greeted the rally on the door steps of the organisers.
The party said it was raising an alarm over what it described as the increasing spate of violence in the state.
It said the violence was masterminded by the Rotimi Amaechi administration, the Save Rivers Movement and the APC, adding that the bodies were planning to continue to create a state of insecurity to justify their call for the removal of the Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mbu.
The party, in a statement issued yesterday on the Bori incident, confirmed the shooting of two Ogoni youths, whose conditions it claimed are “very critical and unstable in a private clinic in Port Harcourt.”
The statement also said that the shooting “followed a local resistance to the APC, Rotimi Amaechi and the Save Rivers Movement by the Ogoni people in Bori.”
Meanwhile, the APC yesterday warned that some people who are sympathetic to President Goodluck Jonathan may be pushing Nigeria to the precipice, following yesterday’s disruption of the rally in Rivers State.
The party also said it strongly condemned the defense of the Rivers State Police Commissioner, Mbu, by the Police Service Commission, PSC, saying the commission, by its unimaginative action, was only pandering to the Presidency.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the men, who invaded the venue of the rally by the Save Rivers Movement (SRM) in Bori, where the executives of the pan Rivers group in Khana Local Government Area of the state were to be inaugurated, attacked those in attendance and beat up some of the journalists who were invited to cover the event, damaging their vehicles and equipment in the process.
APC alleged that while the attack was going on, the police – who had been formally informed of the rally and were expected to provide protection rather watched while the attack went on.
The party said the police carried its partisanship to another level when, the previous day (Saturday), it sent over 300 men to protect a pro- PDP rally that was used solely to launch a blistering verbal assault on the APC and Gov. Chibuike Amaechi.
Meanwhile, the Rivers State Police Command has said they did not receive any request from the Save Rivers Movement to provide security at the disrupted rally venue in Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State.
This disclosure was made by the spokesman for the police in the state, Ahmed Kidaya, said the police only got informed that the rally was disrupted by hoodlums who attacked those present at the rally ground.
"We are not aware that the group was having a rally in Khana. From the report I had from my people there, there are no casualties so far for now
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