About 200 former militants, on Friday, took to the streets of Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, protesting over non-payment of allowance as agreed by the Federal Government in the amnesty deal with them.

The protest paralysed social and commercial activities in the city while it lasted.

A mobile policeman escaped being lynched after he was accused of firing gunshots into the air to scare the protesters.

It was gathered that the policeman would have been set ablaze, but for the timely intervention of soldiers attached to the Joint Military Task Force (JTF).

The protest, the third in the last one month, started around 6.00 a.m. The ‘repentant’ militants barricaded the only road leading to the city at Akenfa end of Yenagoa Local Government Area, thereby disrupting the traffic.

People were forced to stay indoors while social activities were suspended for the period the protest lasted.

The former militants, said to belong to various camps, accused governments at various levels of insensitivity.

According to them, since they were disarmed, the government had not kept its own side of the bargain, especially the payment of the N65,000 monthly allowance.

Some of the former militants, who spoke under condition of anonymity, claimed that the government was only taking care of their former leaders, forgetting about the followers.

“What they (the Federal Government) told us before we accepted the amnesty offer is not what we are experiencing now.

“They agreed to pay each of us N10 million disarmament allowance, but as I am talking to you now, we are yet to receive a dime,” said one of the militants.

With less than two weeks to the deadline of the disarmament programme, the aggrieved militants have threatened to go back to the creeks and launch a fresh offensive.

However, The Tide gathered that the delay in the payment of the allowance by the Federal Government Amnesty Implementation Committee was attributed to logistic problems.

The Tide learnt that the state chairman of the Peace and Conflict Resolution Committee, James Jephthah, has established a link with various commanders of former militant camps to ensure that there was no confrontation between the aggrieved former militants and security operatives.

“We had to intervene and link up with the militant leaders to prevail on the ‘boys’ to stay calm and allow the amnesty committee to resolve the existing bureaucratic difficulties.

“The agreement on the payment of allowances through the leaders still stand and it will not fail,” Jephthah said. As of the time of filing this report, security had been beefed up around the state capital while business and commercial activities had resumed.