Militants dare oil firms, Military over Trans-Forcados Pipeline

• Reject Clark’s Dialogue Team, To Name ‘Real Representatives’
• Coalition Of 76 Civil Groups Tasks FG On Region’s Devt

The Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate (NDGJM), yesterday, warned multi-national oil companies and the military not to re-open the Trans-Forcados Pipeline (TFP), which was destroyed several months ago.

The militant group, which has turned down a ceasefire deal negotiated by the pan-Niger Delta stakeholders, led by Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, blew up the Iwhremaro Quality Control Centre delivery line, last week, and announced commencement of its Operation Hammurabi Code.

In a statement, NDGJM spokesman, Gen. Aldo Agbalaja, said: “We are aware you are experts at testing wills, especially as you believe that you have a military shield. Please, go ahead and restart the facility, and see what will happen. Enough said.”

The group warned the Federal Government against the proposed October 29 meeting with the region’s stakeholders, saying the participants were impersonators.

It said the Federal Government could not rightly claim it wanted to meet with people of the region, if it invites persons of doubtful character, associated with “our long history of neglect and impoverishment.”

The NDGJM said the people could raise young, sincere, grassroots persons, free of corruption and scandals. It promised it would soon release the names of credible leaders and traditional rulers who would represent the region in negotiations, “not pocket money seeking politicians looking for relevance in Buhari’s administration.”

Meanwhile, a coalition of 76 Niger Delta civil groups has called on the federal government to stop paying lip service to the development of the region.

Rising from its meeting at New Concorde Hotel, Owerri, Imo State, weekend, the coalition said peace would continue to elude the region until the federal government improves the state of infrastructure.

The event was organised by the Niger Delta Development Forum, in collaboration with the Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta.

At the session, the new managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Nsima Ekere, disclosed that the commission needed N1.2 trillion for the execution of obligations, even as it is burdened by a debt of about N1 trillion.

Agbalaja said: “The NDGJM has not been deterred from meting out justice to the abusers and pillagers of our people and our natural assets. We shall execute this ongoing campaign until the last vestiges of our enemies, the heartless, conniving oil and gas companies, and their criminal partners, the military, have been vanquished and evacuated from our land.

“This can only be halted if these leeches listen to the voice of reason and seek to do right. We thought we should continue to ignore the grand error being orchestrated by those responsible for the current parlous state of our region. These people seem to have succeeded in bewitching and railroading the federal government into settling for dialogue with them, in the name of the Niger Delta people.

“The Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate has nothing against the people of the region reaching an agreement with the government. What we find offensive is the entity that is about to, as it has done in the past, steal the identity of our people, to hoodwink government.”

The group warned that if agreement was reached with the Pan-Niger Delta Dialogue Team, which it described as Clark’s new conduit, disaffection would continue in the region.