For all of four days, their bodies could not be located.
Rotting away in the dingy creeks of Azuzuama community, Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, the bodies were already even no longer identifiable – apart from the anatomy which portrayed them as men.
The recovery, last Tuesday, of the bodies of 11 of the 12 policemen who were attacked by suspected militants in the creek of Bayelsa State, penultimate Friday, put to rest the speculation that the cops could still be alive.
The bodies were recovered four days after the attack. Miraculously, last Thursday, the twelfth policeman thought to have been dead, re-appeared.
They were heading to that community to provide security at the burial of the late mother of an ex -militant leader, Kile Selky Torughedi, aka Young Shall Grow, and Senior Special Assistant, SSA, on Marine Waterways Security to the Bayelsa Governor, when their boat was ambushed.
16 policemen were said to have been in the boat at the time of the incident.
Four escaped along with the boat driver. The police said 50 cops were deployed for the mission and they were supposed to be making the trip in a convoy of many boats led by a gunboat.
Then the deceased policemen’s boat, according to the police, was left behind after developing engine fault thus making them easy prey for the attackers.
Sunday Vanguard learnt that it took so long to recover the remains of the slain policemen due to the difficult nature of the narrow waterway connected by several creeks. However, the collaborative effort of the Joint Task Force (JTF), code named Operation Pulo Shield, with the police in the search and rescue operation paid off, leading to the recovery of the corpses.
One of the victims, a senior inspector, was identified as Joseph Ofujuni.
He was said to be due for retirement in December after putting-in 35 years of service.
Another was identified as Sgt Jack, Constable Ebebi Lucky.
The identities of others could not be ascertained.
One of the survivors was identified as Sgt Clinton Ambayi.
Though journalists were not allowed to see the corpses, which were evacuated into bags by officials of the state ambulance services on arrival at the Bayelsa State Ministry of Transport jetty before they were conveyed to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) morgue, the place was filled with the stench of decomposing bodies.
According to an eyewitness, the boat conveying the policemen did not develop engine fault, as claimed in some quarters, before they came under attack. It was gathered that the attack occurred along the creek of Lobia II community also in Southern Ijaw LGA.
Their assailants were said to have positioned at a jetty along the narrow creek thereby putting them at an advantage to take out their exposed targets.
The policemen were apparently taken unawares by the gunmen who rained bullets on the boat.
While the gunmen pumped bullets into the hapless policemen, a boat allegedly conveying another team of assailants joined in the firing to ensure none of the victims escaped. The policemen and their boat were said to have been riddled with bullets which left some of the bodies torn apart and making it difficult for them to float on the surface of the river after 24 hours.
But the boat driver miraculously escaped unhurt as he dived into the river. Sgt Clinton and two others, it was learnt, also escaped by diving into the water even as they were given a hot chase by the assailants.
The boat conveying the policemen, according to a source, was not a police boat but was chartered for the occasion.
“It was fitted with double 75 horse power engine as against others that left the FMC waterside for the journey to Azuzuama that fateful day using 200 and 150 horse power mercury double engine”, the source added. This, it was gathered, made the boat carrying the 16 policemen, more than its capacity, to lag behind in what should have been a convoy movement of all the boats heading to Azuzuama for the burial of the late mother of Torughedi.
”When boats are moving in convoy and one of them is lagging behind, the practice is for others to go back and check what was amiss, but, in the case of the boat conveying the police in this convoy, none turned back to know why,” a security operative deployed to the FMC waterside to receive the remains of his slain colleagues on Tuesday lamented.
The atmosphere at the FMC waterside was tense with relations waiting anxiously to catch a glimpse of the remains of their loved ones who though had left for work that fateful Friday with the hope of returning home at the close of work, but never made it back alive.
Some of them didn’t even have an inkling that they would be ordered to proceed to Azuzuama. They got to work that day and were told about the event.
It turned out to be a journey of no return.
The killing not only triggered fresh panic in the oil industry but also left Bayelsa State Police Command and sister security agencies stunned.
Though the tragic incident was not the first time police operatives would be consumed in such a large number in one fell swoop in the creeks of the state; but it was the worst violence seen in the once troubled area since the once rampaging Niger Delta agitators agreed to embrace the Federal Government amnesty.
It was, however, learnt that the ambush, which claimed the lives of the policemen, may have been the fallout of alleged disagreement among members of the once united confederates of the defunct South Wing MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) over amnesty proceeds; this claim could not be verified given the recent upsurge of pirates’ attacks in the creeks and waterways.
The serene Azuzuama settlement, tucked away in the deep mangrove, it was learnt, was the bastion of the South Wing MEND, an affiliate of MEND, led by Torughedi, popularly known as the ‘Young Shall Grow’ in the days of militancy in the oil rich region.
The leader of the group later renounced armed struggle like his other confederates to embrace the Federal Government amnesty making Azuzuama and its waterways one of the most peaceful in the predominantly riverine state.
This diminutive ex- militant leader was said to have been having problems with his ‘boys’ who accused him of abandoning them. He was said to have relocated to Yenagoa after embracing the Federal Government amnesty leaving behind his former confederates. His aggrieved ‘boys’ were said to have vowed to extract their pound of flesh from him whenever he returned to Azuzuama.
This scenario was like a tinderbox waiting to explode. The ex- militant leader lost his mother and it was her burial he was reportedly going to attend in spite of advice from his close confidants that he should stay away.
He reportedly approached the Bayelsa police authorities in Yenagoa for protection during the burial ceremony. He was obliged.
Sadly, the policemen were heading to Azuzuama when they were ambushed by the gunmen along the waterways.
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