Niger Delta Ex-Militants Riot In Bayelsa

Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital was thrown into pandemonium yesterday as residentsr an for cover when about 400 former militants protested the allocation of training slots to them.

A car parked along Otiotio road was burnt down to ashes and the windscreens of no fewer than 12 cars were smashed.

Shops were randomly looted, drinks and bottles were broken, and an aboki men was stab several times, when people were runing elter skelter he was at his comfort zone when the ex -militant grab him and designed him leaving his whole body covered by blood.
He was rushed to the Community Heath Centre in Yenagoa at Yenezuegene axis of the state capital but the doctors there was unable to attained to him because his condition was so critical. Doo Akpo[security agencies] came to his help and took him to FMC.

This forced panicky shop owners the area hurriedly close their business premises. The panic caused a traffic gridlock, with many owners of vehicles caught up in the melee, abandoned them right on the road.

The quick intervention of the operatives of the Joint Military Taskforce(JTF), anti-riot policemen, members of the State Security Outfit,"Operation Doo Akpor "and Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps to the scene restored some order.

Lt. Colonel Onyema Nwachukwu , the spokesman for the Joint Task force confirmed that the violence had been brought under control.

President Goodluck Jonathan last year approved training courses for3,642 ex-militants, under the amnesty programme.

The violent protest started in the area when the Inter-Agency Taskforce headed by Air Vice Marshall Gbum on a verification exercise of ex-militants in the statereportedly told them that 15 guns submitted by a militant camp would be entitled to one training slot.