Murder Of Soboma   

Published on August 30, 2010 by TheNEWS   ·   1 Comment

Ex-militant leader, Soboma George is shot dead by unknown gunmen in Port Harcourt

After enjoying one year of uninterrupted peace, Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, is once again enveloped in fear. This is rooted in the uncertainty of the violence that could be unleashed by militants or cult groups intent on avenging the death of Soboma George, who was shot dead by three unidentified gunmen in old Port Harcourt last Tuesday. Soboma was the second-in-command to Ateke Tom before they parted ways in acrimonious circumstances. He not only formed his own gang, he later became a senior commander of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta, MEND.

Although the circumstances leading to his death are sketchy, an account has it that he was driving home from where he went to play football with his friends when he was shot at point blank range several times by gunmen who might have been trailing him. A lady said to be with him in the car was also shot dead, while about two others died from stray bullets.

As a precautionary measure to nip in the bud any breakdown of law and order, soldiers and Armoured Personnel Carriers, APC, of the Army and Police were deployed to the area and have since commenced round-the-clock patrol. The Rivers State Police Commissioner, Sulieman Abba, confirmed the incident to a section of the press but declined to give details. However, the police authorities could not recover the body of Soboma at the scene of the incident as it was suspected that the assailants carted it away.

The ex-militant leader of a gang called The Outlaws could be likened to the proverbial cat with nine lives. This is because in his years as a deadly militant, he had many close shaves with death, escaping by the skin of his teeth.

When soldiers raided the guest house where he lodged in 2007 and killed most of the lodgers, including the hotel manager and the proprietor, one Iyalla, the spokesman of the 2 Amphibious Brigade at the time, Major Sagir Musa, announced triumphantly that Soboma was shot dead during the raid. In the end, however, it turned out that Soboma escaped through the ceiling of the guest house.

He does not speak to the press. Unlike Tom, who is not afraid to publish his photo, Soboma was taciturn and deadly. He was arrested by security forces and charged to court for murder and armed robbery along with others after breaking away from Tom in 2005. But in a daylight operation unprecedented in the history of militancy in the country, his loyalists stormed the Port Harcourt prisons on Saturday 18 June 2005––they scaled the prison walls near the waterfront––killed some prison officials and spirited him away. A waiting speedboat was used to take him away.

In 2006, he was arrested for a minor traffic offence, while driving one of his Jeeps in Port Harcourt even when the police said he was on their wanted list. He was said to have offered the policemen about N50,000 to allow him go. A report said the policemen wanted more because they knew who he was. When he would not play ball, he was taken to the Central Police Station, CPS, Port Harcourt and detained. Less than two hours after, a rescue team of about 50 fighters, armed with dangerous weapons like AK47 rifles, general purpose machine guns, grenades and dynamite, anchored at the Borokiri waterfront, marched to the CPS that shares boundary with MOPOL barracks, bombed the station and released Soboma. Besides the destruction of the CPS, seven trooper vehicles belonging to the Nigeria Police were burnt. The overwhelmed policemen on duty fled for safety.

Soboma was alleged to be well-patronised by the Rivers State government and was the security contractor for the Liberation Stadium and the Civic Centre even at the time he was declared wanted during the Governor Peter Odili era. The brief administration of Celestine Omehia saw the police go after Soboma. He is one of those deep-rooted in the struggle to emancipate the Niger Delta.

In the years after the 2003 polls, Ateke Tom’s Icelanders gang––also known as NDV––had prospered through a blend of lucrative criminal activity and political patronage. But by the time of the 2007 elections, Ateke had been displaced as Rivers State’s most powerful and politically well-connected gang leader by Soboma George.

Soboma, a young man who had been involved in gang activity for many years, had been a subordinate of Ateke Tom in the Icelanders until he was held in prison custody for allegedly murdering another prominent gang member in 2005. He escaped from jail under mysterious circumstances before a verdict was given. By that time, his relationship with Ateke, whom he reportedly blamed for his arrest, had turned irredeemably sour. A significant faction of Ateke’s Icelanders group broke away to join forces with Soboma when he emerged from prison. Those men formed the nucleus of Soboma George’s Outlaws gang.

Between his 2005 jailbreak and August 2007, Soboma became one of Nigeria’s most notorious symbols of impunity. He lived openly in lavish style and the police made no real effort to apprehend him even as his gang became plainly involved with oil bunkering, kidnappings robbery and other crimes.

Soboma then resumed his public life without fear of the police, who made no further attempt to apprehend him after the 2006 routing of the police by his men.

By 2007, Soboma was an openly cultivated ally of high ranking state government and PDP officials, valued as a reliable source of muscle. During the 2007 elections, some local election monitors reported seeing Soboma and several of his lieutenants traveling around Port Harcourt, dispensing money to polling agents and PDP supporters. After the 2007 polls, the administration of  Celestine Omehia had begun to rely on Soboma’s gang members to keep other gangs out of Port Harcourt, to such an extent that Soboma had become the state government’s unofficial “chief security officer”.

Human Rights Watch believes that there was an established relationship between Soboma and officials at the highest levels of the administration of Omehia. And following the April 2007 elections, Soboma reportedly secured several lucrative sources of income, including contracts, paid out or facilitated by state government officials.

By the end of June 2007, a coalition of gangs bound together by a shared desire to usurp power and wealth from Soboma had emerged under the very loose leadership of Ateke Tom. Allied with Ateke were fighters from a diverse array of other cult gangs including the Axemen, Klansmen, Deebam, Bush Boys, and other groups. In some cases these alliances marked dramatic shifts in previously antagonistic relationships.

Ateke’s Icelanders/NDV, for example, first gained prominence by driving the Bush Boys out of their stronghold in the nearby riverine community of Okrika to ensure that the area was rigged in favor of the PDP during the 2003 elections.

When he embraced the amnesty programme of the federal government last year, Soboma, along with his supporters voluntarily surrendered their weapons at the office of the State Security Service, SSS. He had since then been lying low.

Whatever was the motive of the killing, finding those responsible would no doubt pose some security challenges to the state government and security agencies in the state in the coming days and weeks.

—Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt

Tags:  Ateke Tom, Ex-militant leader, Port Harcourt, Soboma George