By Kelechi Esogwa-Amadi
Attacks, fights, confusion and fear engulfed Ogbunabali axis of Port Harcourt yesterday as cultists forcefully broke into the shops of computer dealers and carted away items worth millions of naira.
Some of the items include laptops, palm tops, phones and power banks.
According to a source in the area, the cultists invaded the computer shops in the evening hours before the dealers closed for the day.
It was gathered that they were demanding for marching ground fees from the computer traders to the tune of between one hundred thousand to five hundred thousand naira (N100,000 – N500,000) monthly from each computer shop owner.
The source, who sells computer and phone accessories, said: “They came in a group and started entering every computer shop, demanding for the marching ground money from the traders. When they told them that there’s no money, they started beating them and destroying things. And you know that these boys used to carry weapons, so the traders were afraid. It’s very unfortunate. See how they stole their computers and destroyed things. The Rivers State Government should do something about this. We’re suffering in this business, why are they disturbing us? Are we not paying our rent and other development levies to the community. Why are they still worrying us? It’s too much of them.”
On what the traders plan to do next, another source, a computer trader, said: “We’re going to shut down our shops until government do something. They have to rescue us from this situation. We cannot be suffering this kind of thing in the hands of cultists. Instead of them to go and work, they will come and worry us. Is it because we’re doing business in their community? We won’t open any shop tomorrow and we will do another protest to the government. We’re tired of this whole nonsense.”
TPCN gathered that amidst the confusion and fear caused by the cultists’ rampage yesterday evening, motorists were diverting to other safe routes while some passengers were jumping out of the vehicles to avoid being hurt by the rampaging cultists, with many wounding themselves in the process.
It was also learnt that the angry traders did a protest uptill evening around the area, over the attack by cultists, burning tyre, all in a bid to draw attention to their plight.
At the time of filing in this report, the police and the Rivers State Government were yet to speak on the incident.
