Emerging reports say major oil companies in the maritime border of the Gulf of Guinea have shut down operations following Friday’s bomb attack near the military checkpoint stationed at the main border with Nigeria on the Bakassi Peninsula.
It was gathered that the deadly attack was carried out by a militant group, Black Marine, an armed wing of the secessionist movement, Biafra Nations League, BnL. The attack led to the death of two Cameroonian soldiers.
Authorities have restricted movements around the border towns from 8pm due to rising insecurity.
The Nigerian Navy and Marine Police have deployed more gunboats to the Ikang jetty in readiness to combat any attack by the Biafran loyalists.
Bakassi is a peninsula on the African Atlantic Gulf of Guinea. It was formerly part of the Eastern Nigeria before the Federal Government led by Olusegun Obasanjo handed the territory to the Cameroonian authority after decades of conflict in the region.
BnL is faced with two sovereign Nations in the Gulf of Guinea among which are Nigeria on the other side of Bakassi and Cameroon on the non-motorable Peninsula. Members of the group are not from the Igbo ethnicity. They are natives of border towns including the Ejagham tribe a hinterland border tribe, six hours drive from Bakassi Peninsula and the Boki people. Others are Ibibio and Oron in Akwa Ibom who are next to the Efik in population in Bakassi Peninsula.
Leader of BnL, Princewill Chimezie Richards has been arrested twice in the region, and banned from entry by the Nigerian Army.
Recently, Nigerian Army and Police ransacked communities in Bakassi in an attempt to arrest the leader of the group.
In a post on BnL Facebook page on Friday, Deputy Leader of BnL, Ebuta Takon issued a warning on Friday, threatening more disaster if the BnL leader is apprehended.
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