Navy terrorises boat operators in Oron over Missing colleague

Navy terrorises boat operators in Oron over Missing colleague

Boat operators, fishermen and passengers in Oron have alleged that operatives of the Nigerian Navy are terrorising them over one of their missing colleagues.
The Naval officer was on Monday declared missing.
It was learnt that the officer’s fate is unknown, and there are speculations he might be dead.
The Navy in anger, has resorted to harassing innocent fishermen and boat operators in Oron.
A boat operator from Effiat, Mbo Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Eteyen Bassey, said the Navy has been turning them back to the bay from the seas threatening to shoot anyone they see.
He said, “For the past one week we have not gone to the seas as the operatives of the Nigerian Navy keep on driving us away even from the bay.”
He explained that they did not know anything about the fate of the missing officer, whether he was dead or alive, insisting that the incident occurred in Calabar and not Oron.
He said, “The man was a naval officer, who went to Calabar to see his superior. He was in his full naval outfit. He was new in Akwa Ibom. If he had paid the N3,000 and gone by passengers’ boat, nothing would have happened to him.
“May be the boat in which he travelled was overrun by the militants. If it were passengers’ boat, those women would have shouted and they would not have shot at anybody.
“Like the former naval officer, who was on a passengers’ boat. When the militants overtook them, they wanted to shoot, but when the women shouted, they brought out the paddle and hit the only naval officer on his head. But no one can be so sure if this particular naval officer has been killed or not.”
However, a source, who did not want his name in the print, said the return boat on which the naval officer boarded, went through the bush path.
He was said to have been removed from the boat by the other militants, who drowned and beheaded him down the water.