The Bayelsa Police Command has sent officers to the home of the late Mr. Oronto Douglas, Special Adviser (Strategy and Research) to former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The Bayelsa Police Command has sent officers to the home of the late Mr. Oronto Douglas, Special Adviser (Strategy and Research) to former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The home, located in Okoroba in Nembe Local Government Area of Bayelsa State was attacked on Christmas Eve but was not visited by the police until 48 hours later.
Community sources had claimed that the police failed to respond to distress calls during the attack, which affected other buildings in the area.
When SaharaReporters contacted the Bayelsa State Police Command for an update on the attack, it initially said it was not aware that such a thing took place. It later recanted and sent officers to the scene.
Mr. Douglas' younger brother, Gift, said on telephone from Okoroba on Friday that a police team visited the scene on Thursday, two days after a distress call was made.
Gift said that he personally reported the incident to the Command’s Public Relations Officer as well as the Nembe Police Division.
"The police just visited the community," Gift said.
According to him, some gunmen, numbering about 15, on Tuesday night, attacked Okoroba taking with them property worth millions of naira.
Mr. Alagoa Morris, an environmental rights activist and friend of Mr. Douglas, condemned the attack. He said the deceased served the people of the state selflessly.
He explained that the police could not respond promptly because the town is not accessible by road. Mr. Morris urged the state and federal governments to tighten security in coastal communities.
"The security deployments to oil-rich coastal communities should also be for residents and not only to concentrate all manpower on oil installations alone."
"I wept on reading media reports on such attack on the residence of Douglas who was so selfless and worked for the Niger Delta's environmental development who died in his prime in service of the nation as if his untimely death was not enough some people desecrated the land," Mr. Morris said.
Mr. Asinim Butswat, a Deputy Superintendent of Police and spokesman of the Bayelsa Police Command, said on Thursday that he could not confirm the incident as he merely heard of it and had limited information.
Okoroba is difficult to access as the road to the town is not motorable. It was in the town that General Owoye Azazi, former National Security Adviser, and other government functionaries died in a helicopter crash in 2012 on their way back from the funeral ceremony of Mr. Douglas’s father.
A road of fewer than 20 kilometers started by the Jonathan administration after the crash has remained uncompleted.
