We’re Not Cultists, But Job Seekers – Bonny Youths Cry Out

NLNG Plant, Bonny at night

Youths of Bonny Local Government Area of Rivers State have declared that their agitation at the palace of the Amanyanabo of Bonny Kingdom was for job placements and not a resort to violence.

The youths who spoke to Kristina Reports in Bonny expressed dismay that some disgruntled elements in the community labeled them cultists for protesting the dearth of jobs and the flooding of the community with non-indigenes who now allegedly occupy the job openings in the shutdown operations at the NLNG plant in Bonny.

One of them, the youth leader of Abbey-Hart House, Idawari Abbey said “the tag is wrong and misleading,” stressing that “the youths were on a legitimate quest to demand that they benefit from job openings in their land and as such do not qualify to be called cultists”.

Some suspected cultists had on Wednesday, October 24, 2018 allegedly hijacked a peaceful protest by some aggrieved job seekers who were at the Perekule Palace to register their resentment with the irregularities associated the recruitment process with the 2018 shutdown operations by the  Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) being handled by PIVOT GIS, Daewoo, among others.

These suspected hoodlums reportedly attacked and manhandled the Chairman of the Bonny Integrated Recruitment Centre (BIRC), Aladiokuma Hart, damaged a police vehicle, and chased away the policemen that came to calm the situation. This resulted in the intervention of the joint military taskforce (JTF).

In the heat of the commotion, one of the aggrieved job seekers, Godswill Jackmay was injured in the hip by a stray bullet allegedly from one of the policemen's rifle.

Questions were being asked though, as at the time of this report, as to what led to the shooting by the police.

Some security experts, who preferred anonymity, told Kristina Reports that the use of firearms should have been the last resort in the circumstance.

They maintained that the police could have used teargas to disperse the crowd and not resort to their weapons as the youths were unnamed at the time.

A student of Madonna University, Yvonne Hart, who said on Facebook that she witnessed the incident, had this to say, “It was community boys and girls, not cult boys. When the police van came that’s when they got mad and were throwing stones, then shot was fired and it cut a boy’s leg. When Ala came out in anger they attacked him and cut his chain and all.”

Another Facebook user, Gilbert Temple, said “Please, those boys are not cult boys; they are angry youths that need jobs”.

His position was corroborated by another Facebooker, Diamond Sonia Golden, who lamented that “I have submitted CV up to five times, till date, not even an action. They only receive CVs and heap it in the office every day. I spent transportation just to go see if there are jobs. All you get as reply is no job, but there are jobs”.

Bonny Local Government Area, with a population of over 200,000, and youths representing more than 60 per cent, currently hosts three of Nigeria’s economic behemoths, the NLNG, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), and Mobil Producing Unlimited, and yet ranks as one of the highest unemployed communities in Nigeria. These, and several other smaller companies operating in the area, mop up over $1 billion into the federal government coffers annually.

Various construction projects and even the current shutdown operations of the NLNG have not adequately impacted the community in terms of job creation. Thousands of young community people, majority of them of them graduates, troop to the recruitment centre on a daily basis in search of ever elusive jobs.

Kristina Reports investigations reveal that Wednesday’s incident that sparked the crisis in the community was predicated on the recruitment drive for the 2018 shutdown where over 500 youths were invited for interviews only to get to the MSC Yard, venue of the interview and were reportedly locked out. Several appeals by the youths fell on deaf ears.

Kristina Reports could not confirm this with PIVOT GIS, the company handling the project as at the time of this report.

Information allegedly gathered by the youths suggested that already several non-indigenes have allegedly been hired from different parts of the country to fill the over 1,000 openings. These individuals were allegedly lodged in different hotels across the community and ferried to site by a fleet of coaster busses.

These developments, Kristina Reports learnt, angered the youths, who went in search of the BIRC Chairman at his office along Hospital Road, Bonny, but were told he was at the palace for a meeting. They then came to the palace to confront him with their findings and also register their angst before the traditional institution.  

It was in the middle of this encounter at the palace entrance that some miscreants came and disrupted the ongoing peaceful interaction between the BIRC Chairman and the youths.

In a telephone chat with Kristina Reports, a former House of Representatives aspirant, George Banigo declared that the era of cult activities in the island was over after the Amanyanabo of Bonny Kingdom, His Majesty, King Edward Asimini William Dappa Pepple III, CON, Perekule XI, set up the Bonny Kingdom Peace and Security Committee.  

He explained that this committee saw to the dissolution of all cult groups in the community, denunciation, rehabilitation and reintegration of the former cult members, and functional collaboration with the security agencies to checkmate all acts of violence, criminality and restiveness in the area.

Banigo maintained that “there maybe people that maybe identified as Greenlanders, Icelanders, and all that but those are former cultists. Nobody should tag any Bonny son or daughter a cultist anymore. They have all renounced their membership. What happened on Wednesday were just expressions of anger and frustration and nothing more. By the way, who said brothers cannot get angry with each and even fight? That does not make them cultists”.  

Some members of the Bonny Youth Leaders’ Forum, who spoke to Kristina Reports, also shared Banigo’s views, saying “our youths went in search of jobs and were frustrated and when they expressed their anger at the situation, some people come and label them cultists. That is wrong.”

One of them, Harrison Isaiah, the youth leader of John-Jumbo House, said “we have been following events at the employment bureau and we are not comfortable with certain things happening there. For the past two years, none of us, as youth leaders, have been asked to nominate youths from our various houses for jobs at the bureau. So, the so-called indigenes, who are being employed, how were they sourced?”

Adding its voice to the clamour for a more transparent and accountable recruitment process at the recruitment centre, the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bonny chapter, said it was duty-bound to ensure that employment opportunities in the community were accessible to the people and helps in assuaging the unemployment crisis facing the area.

Speaking through its Publicity Secretary, Adolf Ransom Pepple, the APC said, “As a political party, we have the right to intervene on behalf of the people if we feel that things are not properly done,” calling on the BIRC leadership to address the concerns raised by the youths and see that jobs in the area benefit the people.  

Reacting to the development, the BIRC Chairman, Aladiokuma Hart expressed regrets at Wednesday’s events, assuring that all the issues raised would be looked into, while debunking allegations that jobs were being sold to non-indigenes. He stated that the recruitment centre under his leadership was working in synergy with all relevant stakeholders to ensure that the few jobs available get to the people.

On his part, the new Leader of the Bonny Legislative Council, Prince Wilcox, in a chat with Kristina Reports in Bonny, assured the youths that the Council under his leadership will synergize with the Executive Chairman, David Irimagha, to ensure that the local government bylaw on employment was fully implemented to the benefit of the people of the area.

“You know, the Executive Chairman, Hon. David Irimagha has employment as one of the cardinal points of his policy thrust. The Legislative Council under my leadership will support him by strengthening the legal framework for him to succeed in creating jobs and ensuring that these jobs get to our people”.