Ignore threats to Aso Rock, NASS, NNPC, says Ijaw leader

• Lagos Assembly, Kumuyi urge dialogue

A new Niger Delta militants group has vowed to attack strategic targets across Nigeria, especially “all those infrastructures that were built with our oil and gas monies in this country.”

According to agency reports monitored in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State yesterday, the Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force (JNDLF), listed the targets as including the presidential villa, government ministries, National Assembly, NNPC, Defence and Police Headquarters as well as the Central Bank in Abuja, plus the offices of oil majors and the military.

However, the Lagos State House of Assembly, the General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Church, Pastor W.F.Kumuyi, and a former member House of Representatives from Niger State, Adamu Bala Kuta, urged the Federal Government to dialogue with the region’s insurgents in a discussion with a view to finding a lasting solution to disruption oil facilities.

“We will make the federal government and oil companies suffer as they have made the people of the Niger Delta region suffer over the years from environmental degradation and environmental pollution,” the JNDLF’s “Joint Revolutionary Council” said.

But Nigerians have been urged to ignore the many militants groups that have surfaced in different parts of the Niger Delta threatening fire and brimstone.

According the spokesman of the Gbaramatu Traditional Council, Chief Godspower Gbenekema: “Everyone is now creating one paper militant group or the other threatening to do one thing or the other. And my advice to people is to ignore these fake groups because they exist only in the imagination of their creators.”

He said one of such group is the JNDLF which yesterday said it would launch missiles in the night for all to see its might and attack key government infrastructure.
Gbenekema said: “Which missile? Where do they want to launch the missile? Please ignore these people , they are out to cause confusion.”

The Lagos Assembly came up with the resolution after taking a report of the Chairman of its Committee on the Environment, Saka Fafunmi, over scarcity of water in the state.

The Lagos House had been told activities of Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) who have been damaging oil facilities thus paralysing power supply which was responsible for the water scarcity.

As a result, the “House urges the Federal Government to come to a roundtable table discussion with the militants towards finding a lasting solution to the crisis.”

Kumuyi who spoke in Warri on arrival yesterday for a crusade, said: “Stakeholders must come together and reason together. How can we meet the expectations of this side and that side, and solve our problem? That is the important thing.” On the issue of restructuring Nigeria, Kumuyi said: “ We should not think it means a break-up.