‘INC not in support of secession’

Troops of the Military Joint Force yesterday stormed Kaima community in Kolokuma/Opokuma Local Council of Bayelsa State to stop a planned declaration of a Niger Delta Republic by a militant group, Adaka Boro Avengers (ABA).

The militants failed to carry out their much-publicised threat to declare independence on August 1, 2016, citing heavy pressure from Ijaw leaders and functionaries in the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government. They said their plan was not for selfish reasons.

In a statement by their spokesman, General Edmos Ayayeibo, the avengers said: “We received calls from prominent leaders like former president, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, Mrs. Ankio Briggs, Chief. E. K. Clark and especially King Alfred Diete Spiff calling on us to abort our mission to declare Niger Delta Republic.”

They, however, declared that their plan to cripple the economy remained on course and would not stop “until the Nigerian government is ready to sit on a roundtable to dialogue and to restructure Nigeria.”

The ABA reechoed the warning by another militants group, Niger Delta Avengers, to the Federal Government against having any discussion with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), describing the group as containing “greedy men” who are after enriching themselves.

The move by the military to stop any declaration of an independent region by the group which had scheduled the event to be held in Kaiama town, famous for an earlier declaration of a Niger Delta Republic by the late Ijaw war hero, Isaac Adaka Boro on February, 23rd 1966, began at the weekend with the movement of some of its men to the town.

The late Boro, before the civil war in 1966, formed the Ijaw Volunteer Force, an armed militant group with members consisting mainly of his fellow Ijaw.

Kaiama was also famous for the 1988 “Ijaw Youth Declaration” where youths drawn from over five hundred communities and 40 clans met to deliberate on the best way to ensure the survival of the Ijaw people of the Niger Delta within the Nigerian state.

The military move tagged “Operation Delta Safe” was to stop such reoccurrence. Residents of Kaima confirmed the movement of troops to the community and said it started on Saturday, July 30 with a stop-and-search operation on vehicles moving along a section of the East-West road.

When The Guardian visited the community yesterday, the people were seen going about their normal businesses unmolested, though the presence of fierce-looking soldiers may have sent jitters down the spines of some of them.

A resident from the community who spoke with our correspondent said there was no major incident apart from the presence of military men.

Spokesman of Operation Delta Save, Lt. Col Duada, could not be reached for reaction, but the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali at the weekend said the military was ready to do anything to make sure Nigeria remained one country.

The Ijaw National Congress (INC) had cautioned the militants against declaring a Niger Delta Republic. But the group said the current administration under President Muhammadu Buhari had not been reassuring in its handling of the issues at hand in the Niger Delta, thereby making agitations and restiveness to blossom.

Spokesman of INC, Victor Burubo, said the group had neither deliberated on such an issue nor heard of any ethnic nationality in the Niger Delta that supports it. According to him, such a move does not have the blessing of the INC or the Ijaw nation.

“Congress reiterates that matters of such extreme gravity which have fatal implications for the Niger Delta and Nigeria should not be canvassed without commensurate consultations within and among various ethnic groups in the region,” he said

The INC pointed out that the issues of injustice and marginalisation of Ijaw people are extant and have grown in intensity over the years. “Unfortunately the current administration under President Muhammadu Buhari has not been reassuring in its handling of the issues at hand, thereby making agitations and restiveness to blossom rather than diminish.”