Rescue efforts are continuing to recover seven people feared drowned in the Robertkiri waterways of Kula Kingdom, Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State, after an accident involving a tugboat and a speedboat carrying more than 15 people.
The incident happened on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, when a tugboat escorted by military personnel tried to pull out a 200,000-barrel oil vessel operated by the Ibeto Group, which had reportedly been in the area for two years. The speedboat carried protesting members of Kula’s satellite communities and fishing settlements, who had vowed to stop the vessel from leaving their waters over unresolved issues with the company.
They alleged that Ibeto Group polluted their waterways, fishing ports, and creeks, refused to pay local vendors, and failed to pay royalties owed to the host communities.
The victims include Davies Opiri, Secretary of the Kula CDC, and two members of a local security outfit known as the Amama soldiers, who have not yet been identified. The others are David Sukubo, Endwell Ameme, Aboy Umeonu, and Nye Oriye. Eight people were rescued alive.
The search team included the DPO of Abonnema Police Division, the President of the National Youth Council of Nigeria, Amb. Sukubo Sara-Igbe Sukubo, chiefs, and other Kula indigenes. They searched creeks and water bodies around the scene but had found none of the victims 24 hours after the incident.
A survivor, Gibert Pokubo, blamed the military personnel attached to the tugboat. He alleged that they acted on Ibeto Group’s instruction to forcefully pull the vessel out, regardless of obstacles in the way. Jonah Joshua, a leader of the search team, said he hoped to recover all the bodies and that Ibeto Group and the Nigerian Army’s Sector 3 Command, Okrika personnel involved, should be held responsible for what he called avoidable deaths. A relative of one victim, Stephen Willbraide, said the victim’s wife, children, and family are devastated, and he demanded a thorough
