The Police in Rivers State have restricted vehicular traffic on roads around its facilities as a measure against the spate of attacks on security officers, an action residents say is causing traffic gridlock.

Motorists plying two-lane roads around police stations in the state are to use one lane while the other is blocked by the police as precaution against sudden attacks by ‘gunmen’.

Abacha road, Rumuokoro and Mile One are some of the roads in Port Harcourt residents say have been partially blocked by the police.

Omoni Nnamdi, a Superintendent and Public Relations Officer of the Rivers State Police Command, confirmed to FIJ in a text message that roads were partially blocked.

“It is simply a security measure,” Nnamdi stated.

There have been deadly attacks on security officers in Rivers State, recently.

Last week, at midnight, three officers of the Nigerian Customs Service were killed by gunmen at a checkpoint along Omagwa/Elele Owerri road in Ikwerre Local Government Area. Governor Nyesom Wike, responding to the attack, said that it was “heinous and condemnable” and “there was no justification for it”. But the attacks continued.

BBC Pidgin reported that an Army formation at Abua/Odual Local Government Area was also attacked within 24 hours of the killing of the Customs officers.

READ ALSO: Military Checkpoint in Anambra Attacked by Gunmen

Insecurity in the region, like others in Nigeria, has been simmering. States in the Southeast, including Abia, Imo, Enugu and Anambra, which are near Rivers State in the Southsouth, have all been attacked by persons often described as “unknown gunmen” but suspected to be members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), an outlawed, secessionist group and its militia wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN).