TELL Magazine

Angry youths of Bonny Island in Rivers State on Thursday attacked journalists on official duty and burnt down the bus conveying them to the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited premises.

The youths had gathered at the gate of the company where they were protesting an alleged unjust distribution of the N3 billion annual community development grants from the company to the host communities when the bus conveying the journalists arrived.

The journalists escaped in a dugout canoe that ferried them across a creek to safety at Coconut Estate, said Mr. Ignatius Chukwu, the South-South/South-East Manager of Businessday newspaper.

The journalists had been invited over by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited as the company preparatory to the take-off of the $10 billion Train 7 project.

Mr Chukwu said, “Some of our bags burnt in it (the bus). We escaped through a back creek in a sinking wood boat that sank through the short journey to the other side of Bonny called Coconut Estate. God is great indeed.”