Operatives at the Zone II Police Command headquarters, Onikan, Lagos, have smashed a notorious robbery gang suspected to have been behind several bank robbery operations in Lagos and some eastern parts of the country.

In a four-page communiqué issued yesterday at the end of its emergency meeting and signed by Comrade Mark Tarilayefa (Bayelsa) and Comrade Bernard Francis (Rivers),the maritime workers accused the men of the Joint Task Force of engaging in brazen extortion of money and torture of passengers on boats plying the area.

He maintained that the caretaker committee was put in place as a result of the dissolution of the immediate past executive and expressed the readiness of the present leadership of the party to promote discipline and cohesion in the party.

Egheruaye Quarters further urged the court to grant an order of injunction restraining Shell Development Company from further paying monies due to them as compensation on the land to the defendants or any persons except them, just as they prayed the court to particularly restrain Timothy Igben, Darosha Emesa and George Idogun who are 8th, 9th and 10th defendants respectively from maltreating, discriminating and witch hunting the plaintiffs or doing any act whatsoever capable of prejudicing the plaintiffs.

President of MOSOP, Mr. Goodluck Diigbo, said “Ateke Tom’s readiness to give peace a chance at a point when most observers of happenings in the Niger Delta felt that the crisis in the region will escalate, is a pointer to the fact that it could be resolved within us.