Buchanan, Grand Bassa County – The fear factor and rumor of Boko Haram is splurging in the port city of Buchanan less than a week after a boat washed off the coast of Edina, near Buchanan.
Fishermen, under the instruction of the county authority brought the boat to Buchanan and it has since been transported to Monrovia by the Liberia Coast Guards (LCG) and the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization (BIN).
The boat presence in Grand Bassa County has left many residents speculating unconfirmed information; some asserting that it is plan of terrorists while others are demanding more details from the government.
Although, details about the boat has not been explained to reporters who witnessed the transporting process to Monrovia, many believe it is a raft boat of an abandoned oil vessel recently discovered on the coast of Robertsport, Grand Cape Mount County.
The raft boat, found on Thursday, May 12 with several lifejackets on board showed no traces of passengers like the Tamaya 1 oil vessel found on the shore of Robertsport on May 3.
Callers on several talk radio programs in the county are wary about the boat. “We need to understand more things about how this boat came here,” said Emmanuel Johnson.
“The Liberian Government need to tell us more about this whole thing that is happening and they should not just keep quit and think everything will just go down, in case something bad happened,” added Junior Daiyougar.
Speculations continue to pile up with residents making assumptions though most of their comments point to the agreement of a gap in the country’s security and the government inability to investigate the unanswered questions and concerns about the mystery oil vessel and the raft boat.
Some are recalling incidents which led to the start of Liberian civil war in the 1990s while others are afraid that it may be Islamist militants Boko Haram or Islam State (IS) that are planning to attack the country.
There have been no official comments from the county administration while officials of the BIN and LCG who transported the boat to Monrovia refused to speak to local reporters, making it difficult for county based journalists to report on the situation.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s National Security Advisor Dr. Boima Fahnbulleh at program marking the graduation of 250 BIN recruits in Grand Cape Mount held over the weekend warned officers of BIN to beware of pirates who hijack ships and demand ransom from their owners.
He trashed suspicion of Boko Haram capturing the Timaya 1 ship saying: “It makes no sense for the people to think that it is the Muslims who contacted the ship in order to bring Boko Haram in the country, because Grand Cape Mount is highly populated by Muslims. But be aware that there are pirates on the continent to carry out their mission,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a brief telephone chat with FrontPage Africa, Grand Bassa Superintendent Levi Demmah said the administration has called on the public to not panic while massagers have been send to citizens to report any suspicious happenings in the communities.
Providing detail about the Tamaya 1 oil vessel recently, the Ministry of National Defense said the vessel was a Panamanian registered flying a Nigerian flag, but details about how the ship appeared on Liberia’s coast and the whereabouts of its crew are unknown.
Like the residents of Buchanan, FrontPage Africa recently reported of lingering fear amongst residents of Robertsport, Grand Cape Mount County.