Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Nigerian Navy, Forward Operation Base in Bonny, Rivers State, says it has successfully rescued 20 passengers, including women and children, from a pirate attack on the Port Harcourt-Bonny Sea route.
The Commander, Nigerian Navy FOB Bonny, Captain Maksum Mohammed, revealed that the Navy also uncovered a new strategy used by pirates to abduct travelers, where boat operators collude with pirates to fake engine problems and create opportunities for attacks.
The pirates’ tactic, according to Mohammed, involves boat operators loading passengers, then pretending to experience engine failure near river entrances, making them vulnerable to pirate attacks.
The Navy advised the coastal state governments and Local Governments to urgently consider deploying ferries on the waterways, especially, the Bonny-Port Harcourt Sea route as a safer, sustainable, and subsidized means of transportation.
He said, “This is a clear case of willful endangerment of passenger safety. Why would any mariner in his right senses sail with passengers on board a boat whose engines were outrightly faulty and unable to sustain an hour’s journey?
“We’re also dealing with recent cases of attacks on the river; what if these criminals had seen and approached them and taken them captive? What leverage would they have had to escape their assailants?
“This is just in case, maybe, there was some kind of a plan because nearly all the kidnap incidents occurred where there was an engine failure or simulation in front of a river mouth, which now resulted in the kidnap as they come out and then pick their victims and carry on,” Mohammed explained.
The Naval FOB boss further said the Navy’s investigation revealed that the boat was intentionally simulating engine failure.
“We encountered the same boat again simulating another engine failure in front of another river entrance. It was at that point that we decided to evacuate the passengers onto our boats and continued with the movement,” Mohammed said.
It will be recalled that in the last few weeks, there have been repeated cases of pirate attacks and abductions on the waterway, as 10 passengers who were abducted by pirates on their way to Port Harcourt from Bonny were freed after four days in captivity.
The Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria led by the Chairman, Port Harcourt Commercial District, Israel Pepple, recently led a protest to the Government House, to register their complaints on the frequent attacks on water travellers by pirates and solicited the intervention of the Rivers State Government for more security on waterways.
