Explosion Kills Four Naval Men In Port Harcourt

Bolaji Ogundele, Port Harcourt - 22.03.2008

FOUR Naval personnel were on Friday feared dead while about five gunboats were destroyed in an electrically generated explosion at the NNS Pathfinder Jetty, Rumuolumeni on the outskirts of Port Harcourt.

The dreaded militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion, saying it was in retaliation of an earlier killing of civilians by the Navy recently.

Saturday Tribune gathered that the incident occurred while one of the operators of the one of the gunboats was trying to draw fuel electronically.

Confirming the accident, the spokesman of the Joint Task Force (JTF) Operation Flush Out 3, Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, said about two personnel were feared dead while about three boats were affected in the explosion.

According to him, in a text message with which he confirmed the accident, Musa said “there was an electrical explosion this morning at about 0900 hours at the NNS Pathfinder Jetty. It was purely an accident caused by an electrical mishap.

“About three boats and a barge were torched and casualty figure is still being collated. It is feared that one or two of our men might have died in the process,” he said, but noted that it “would not affect NNS Pathfinder or the JTF operation.”

Meanwhile, the Navy spokesman at the NNS Pathfinder, Lieutenant Way Olabisi, denied the death, although he said some of their men sustained injuries while trying to salvage the situation.

He said fire from the explosion had since been put out by the efforts of naval personnel and the fire departments of ExxonMobil Petroleum Company and Shell Petroleum Development Company.

That, however, contradicted the confirmation by a top navy source, who did not want to be mentioned, that about four men had died and that five boats were destroyed in the incident. He suggested strong link to militant attack.

In an online response, however, the spokesman of the MEND, Jomo Gbomo, had claimed responsibility on behalf of his group for the incident.

He said it was in retaliation of the death caused by navy personnel recently, in which innocent civilians were been killed without a word of apology from the Navy.

“This was sabotage on two gun boats by our men inside the Navy. This was done to retaliate the killing of innocent civilians by the Nigerian Navy who used their gunboat to crash into a passenger ferry without even an apology for the loss of lives,” Gbomo said.