A protest organised by pro-African Action Congress groups known as United Niger Delta for Buhari, and Coalition of Non-Governmental Organisations in Rivers State, has been greeted with heavy shooting. The protesters, who had earlier voiced their opinion against the collation of the governorship election results in Rivers State, had moved from Air Force junction to Agip Junction in Port Harcourt before hoodlums attacked and dispersed them. Passersby who heard the sound of gunshots took to their heels in order not to be hit by stray bullets. Our correspondents observed that the protest had gone on for a while before the hoodlums suspected to be political thugs came in to intimidate the protesters. The action of the thugs ended the protest as members of the group dispersed in a haste. At GRA in Port Harcourt, stones and other dangerous objects were freely thrown into the crowd, a development that was immediately followed by intermittent sounds of gunshots. A journalist who works with a Port Harcourt-based radio station, Love FM, Josiah Osiorigho, suffered vicious attack during the melee. “They took my phones; they took N10,000 in my pocket and stabbed me with bottle. 
They smashed a bottle on my head. Only God saved me; if not, they wanted to kill me.” Speaking with newsmen, leader of the protest, Anabs Sara-Igbe, alleged that the thugs that stopped the protest were working for the state government. He said, “We obtained Police clearance for the protest and Police gave us the go-ahead order. Some boys were hired to disrupt the protest. They came and shot into the crowd. The government does not have respect for human lives. “They (government) are brutal. Thank God, nobody died. Our boys came out to challenge the boys, but I stopped them. They have shown that they are killers. But, we still achieved our aim.” 
Sara-Igbe, however, said that the people of the state would not accept the results that were being collated by Independent National Electoral Commission, adding that INEC was determined to declare Governor Nyesom Wike of PDP the winner. “We have already lost confidence in the process; we have lost confidence in INEC. What they are doing there is to act out the script of the PDP,” Sara-Igbe alleged. Earlier, the leader of Coalition of NGOs, Somina Wokoma, had lamented that the people of the riverine area in the state had suffered marginalisation for a long time as far as the governorship position was concerned. Reacting, the State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Emma Okah, dismissed the claim by Sara-Igbe that those who attacked the protesters were working for the state government. He added that the protesters might have stage-managed the attack in order to blame it on government. Okah explained that the ban on protest was an interim measure to prevent a breakdown of law and order in the state, adding that those who flout the no-protest directive should be ready to face the law if apprehended. 
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