RIVERS State remains a hotbed of violence even after the ending of recent supplementary elections there with hoodlums stepping into the fray as yesterday police Sergeant Sunday Adoga was gunned down in cold blood in Port Harcourt.

 Over recent weeks, Rivers State has been wrecked with violence as Peoples Democratic Party and All Progressives Congress supporters have clashed during the elections. There have also been clashes with the security forces which have left soldiers dead and members of the National Youth Service Corps conducting the pools have also been killed by thugs.

 Yesterday, tension in the state rose further as unknown gunmen suspected to be armed robbers shot Sergeant Adoga, in the Waterlines area of Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital. This follows a similar incident when men suspected to be assassins killed an unidentified young man, near First Bank Bus Stop, along Aba Road in the Rumuomasi area of Port Harcourt.

 Sergeant Adoga was killed by the suspected armed robbers, who were shooting sporadically in an attempt to flee, after a failed robbery operation on banks located along Olu Obasanjo Road in the Rivers State capital. One eyewitness said that robbers had gone to the area to rob a particular bank but were resisted by policemen guarding it.

He added: “The armed robbers came to rob one of the banks located here in Olu Obasanjo Road, but they had a shootout with policemen guarding all the banks located on this road. So, it seemed the combined power of all the policemen working in all the banks was more than that of the armed robbers and they escaped through different directions."

According to the eyewitness, two policemen mat have actually been killed in the shootout.  Meanwhile, the unidentified young man killed in Rumuomasi, was said to have been trailed by his assailants to the area, where they shot him at close range and escaped.