Police Watch as Hoodlums Attack N/Delta Activist, Ankio Briggs During Anti-Herdsmen Protest in Bayelsa
Niger Delta activist Ms Annkio Briggs was attacked and harassed by some hoodlums, led by an ex-militant leader, who stormed Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, to protest the controversial allocation by the state government of 1,200 hectares of land to Fulani herdsmen for cattle grazing.
Though the state governor, Hon Seriake Dickson, had defended the allocation, Niger Delta campaigner, Ms AnnKio Briggs, who got to Tombia Junction, the take-off point of the protest in Yenagoa before 9.00 am, was addressing the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, in the area and his men on the purpose of the protest, when thugs, who seemed to have official backing, pounced on her and others.
It was learned that policemen and other security agencies, which were also there to abort the protest, fired teargas and shot indiscriminately into the air, forcing the protesters, who were not prepared to confront security agents, to run for their lives.
National presidents of Ijaw Peoples Development Initiative, IPDI, National Security Watch Organization of Nigeria, NSWON, Messrs. Austin Ozobo and Dickson Bekederemo, Comrade Harrison Kpikpi, Ojugo Christy, Preye Dressman and other leaders, who were at the venue, were also assaulted by the thugs in the presence of security agents.
