Three Port Harcourt bound
commercial speed boats with over 40 passengers on board were last Tuesday attacked by suspected sea pirates.
The hoodlums during the attack along Ekulama two at Kula River in Degema Local Government Area of Rivers State also stripped naked all the occupants of the boats and ordered them to jump down into the mangrove forest.
The Tide correspondent gathered that both men and women were ordered to pull –off all their wears, load all their belongings into two of the passenger boats and drove off with two of the boats belonging to the commercial boat drivers.
According to my source, the sea armed robbers diverted the three boats into a creek before they carried out their nefarious activities.
One of the drivers of the all fated boats, Mr Ebimila Oputa, who narrated his ordeal with the pirates said it was like a nightmare, as the bad boys numbering five armed with guns and machete attacked them at about 7,20 am on that fateful day, while on their way to Port Harcourt and dispossessed them of everything on them.
Oputa said his boat, MV Pere Z-Z with 75 Horse-Power and 13 passengers was also snatched away by the pirates, leaving all the passengers at the mercy of God in the creek.
According  to him, their savior was that one of the passengers still had his handset on him which they used to call their base at Nembe waterfront, Port Harcourt, that quickly came to their  rescue.
He said although there was no casualty but the trauma they went through was unprecedented.
In his reaction, the chairman, Nembe Waterfront Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, Comrade David Teke, reiterated his call on government to provide gunboats with security personnel at strategic locations of the waterways, adding that a special taskforce should  be set up with some civilian volunteers to assist the Joint Taskforce (JTF) at difference checkpoints to checkmate the activities of the sea armed robbers.
Teke expressed dismay that the government had not given priority attention to the security of the people at the riverine communities in the state.
The incident had been reported to the Marine Police Division at Abonnema Wharf, Port Harcourt, he said.