Unemployed graduates beaten,arrested over protesting unemployment

There was pandemonium at the Yenizue-Gene area of Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, after armed policemen stormed the area, beating and arresting jobless graduates, who assembled to begin a protest against unemployment.

The security operatives were said to have thrown caution to the wind as they injured the aggrieved graduates and arrested over 30 of them, including five of their leaders.

Our correspondent gathered that the policemen, including members of the state security outfit, codenamed, ‘Operation Doo-Akpo’, harassed the youths and bundled them to the Criminal Investigation Department.

They were said to have been hounded into the CID cells, while others escaped to avoid the arrest.

The unemployed graduates, numbering over 150, were said to have gathered on a street at Yene-Izuegene to begin a peaceful protest against the government.

Part of the plan was to issue a 30-day ultimatum to the Governor Seriake Dickson’s administration to lift embargo on employment into the civil service in order to absorb them.

The protesters, under the aegis of Unemployed Graduates Forum of Bayelsa, had claimed  that all their efforts to meet with some top government officials over their travails, had proved abortive.

Speaking on their behalf, Mr. Anthony Joseph, a Mechanical Engineering graduate, said they had three weeks earlier informed the police of the protest.

He wondered why the police were after them.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Bayelsa Police Command, Mr. Alex Akhigbe, confirmed the arrest of the protesters, and said they were being interrogated.