According to the Rivers State Police Command, there have been no levies placed on any communities in the state’s Ahoada West Local Government Area by alleged cultists.
Grace Iringe-Koko, a spokeswoman for the state Police Command, made this statement after a stakeholder in Ahoada West reported that suspected cultists were asking for a N10 million security charge in some of the local communities.
However, Superintendent of Police Iringe-Koko urged everyone involved in the impacted communities to file a formal police complaint regarding the occurrence.
According to her, no levies have been placed on any communities in Ahoada or anywhere else in Rivers State as of yet.If such a situation arises, we anticipate local residents or other interested parties to file an official report with the Ahoada Division.
The police won’t be able to verify what they claim is happening if they don’t report the incident, thus they can even go to the command headquarters and do so.
She claimed that the police were working around the clock to purge the state’s neighbourhoods of criminal elements and make sure that any suspects were captured.
A stakeholder said that certain local communities in the local government area were already giving N100,000 per household to make up the N10m fee, which they referred to as “survival money,” in an anonymous interview on Nigeria Info, a Port Harcourt-based radio station our correspondent was listening to at the time.
The stakeholder claimed on Friday that cult gangs in Ahoada West LGA sent messages to numerous villages on the exact day that Bako Angbashim, the Divisional Police Officer of Ahoada, was assassinated, warning them to pay the amount or prepare for their actions.
The gang (of cultists) in Ahoada West “started sending messages across to various communities to pay N10m before the end of the month, otherwise they would come and set the entire community on fire” the very day that they killed the DPO.Currently, villages must pay N100,000 just to survive, which is not good. Even worse, there are rumours that the Gift David they are pursuing has moved from Ahoada East to Ahoada West.
“We shifted the palliatives that were brought to us and dispatched them to these boys in their various hiding places. The administration should be honest when it says it wants to fight insecurity.
Additionally, he urged the state administration and security forces to attack security in Ahoada West, where he claimed the main suspect might be hiding.
“The State Government, Nigeria Police, and other pertinent security agencies should come to Ahoada West and search the area,” the stakeholder stated. In Ahoada West is Gift Okpara. So when the man is nearby, they should turn away from the distance.
Gift Okpara is no longer in Ahoada East; he is instead in Ahoada West. They should assist us by focusing their searchlight on Ahoada West. The late Bako Angbashim once visited Ahoada West and conducted several raids on some communities.
The Ahoada West LGA’s Supervisor for Information, Media, and Communication, Madu Madueke, denied the claim that cultists forced N10 million on a community there.
“The local government is not a ward or village where you will say that the entire communities in Ahoada West are contributing money to a group of people,” he said. The narrative is untrue.
However, attempts to contact Mr. Boniface Onyedi, the State Governor’s media aide, were unsuccessful because he did not return our correspondent’s calls.
As of the time this story was submitted on Sunday night, Onyedi had not yet replied to text messages or WhatsApp messages that had been sent to him.
