Militants greet Muslims, bomb Chevron manifolds
Niger Delta Avengers (NDA)
• Deny killing, kidnapping policemen, piracy
• Ijaw youths task Buhari on restructuring Nigeria
• Insists Nigeria’s unity negotiable
Bent on making good its ‘operation zero economy’ threat, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) yesterday blew up three Chevron manifolds : RMP 22, 23, and 24.
Then in an ironic twist, the insurgents also sent a message of goodwill to Muslims celebrating the end of Ramadan.
In a separate development, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) yesterday faulted Wednesday’s statement by President Muhammadu Buhari to Niger Delta militants that “the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable.”
They said the President’s position was an old-fashioned approach to the resolution of national problems, more so as Buhari was quoting a 1967 statement by former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon on the unity of Nigeria.
“The circumstances of the present-day Nigeria demand a renegotiation of the future unity and existence of Nigeria,” the IYC said.
According to the spokesman of the Avengers, Mudoch Agbinibo: “Between the hours of 10:50 p.m. to 11:10 p.m. our Niger Delta Avengers strike team blew up Chevron manifolds. The manifolds are RMP 22, 23 and 24. Happy Eid Mubarak to our Muslim brothers.”
In a statement hours earlier, the insurgents warned Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media, Garba Shehu, to get his records straight.
The militants were apparently angered by comments credited to Shehu who reportedly said: “Out of the blues, a group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers, NDA sprouts. They kill soldiers and policemen. They kidnap and kill oil company workers, piracy on the high seas. They asked oil companies to stop operations and pack out of the Niger Delta region.
“They blow up oil pipelines, power and other infrastructure. They attack and kill prominent individuals, ransacking homes up and down the coastal areas, including lately, Lagos and Ogun states. All these for what?”
But the group’s spokesman insisted that it has neither killed policemen nor kidnapped oil workers or been involved in sea piracy.
“The Buhari-led government knows the people attacking soldiers and killing policemen. It’s their sleeper agents that are doing it, so they should stop accusing Niger Delta Avengers of killing, kidnapping policemen, soldiers and individuals in the region,’’ it said, adding:
“We the Niger Delta Avengers have not negotiated with anyone. So we don’t know where Mr. Garba Shehu and the National Security Adviser, General Babagana Munguno, are getting their information from.
‘‘If they have been negotiating with anybody it clearly shows they had been negotiating with fraudsters and their National Security Agency-created militant group.”
The spokesman of the IYC, Mr. Frank Omare, said the demand for restructuring Nigeria was not peculiar to the Niger Delta region but cuts across all parts of the country.
He added: “For Nigeria to make progress, President Buhari should dump his old-fashioned approach to the unity of Nigeria and face the reality of the present day situation. Nigerians want a renegotiated Nigeria that reflects a true federal state that allows people to grow at their own pace. Nigeria as constituted at present, is suffocating and the federating ethnic nationalities can no longer bear the suffocating effect of the defective structure which hampers the development of the country. It is in the interest of all Nigerians to renegotiate the future unity of Nigeria.
“Nigerians want a country that is united on mutually agreed terms and not the present defective structure. The IYC calls on President Buhari to wake up and face the reality of the situation and stop relying on outdated notion of Nigeria’s unity. Nigerians demand renegotiation.”
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19 Comments
It’s true that Nigeria needs restructuring, but bombing oil installations and worsening the pollution of the already polluted Niger Delta environment is a dumb idea of seeking for restructuring. It’s dumb.
What then do you think will convince Nigerians to renegotiate if the binding force of the false unity (Niger Delta Wealth) is allowed to be in place?
Niger Delta Wealth is allowed to be in place like South Sudan’s? Who will invest in such a volatile environ in the future? I think the approach is total wrong. Bombing oil installations will scare investors from investing in the region later in the future!
Ken Saro-Wiwa did a better job. He called the attention of the world to the plight of the Ogoni people and the Niger Delta. He achieved what no gun-totting, dynamite-throwing group of boys could not. Erase it from your mind that these guys are agitating for you. They are just a band of opportunists who want to get their own share of the spoils. They will ruin the environment further just to get a part of their own “chopping”. Immediately they are called to “come and chop”, you’ll not hear a whimper from them. They’ll just “zap” and build universities and refineries in neighbouring countries until their loots dry up and they start the circus all over again. Nigeria needs restructuring, but not from these opportunists who’ll use every means, no matter how dangerous, to get their hands on their own share of the pie. They certainly do not represent me.
Ok Victor, what do you suggest to bring an unwilling government to negotiate a restructured Nigeria? Bear in mind what the President has said: “the Unity of Nigeria is not negotiable”, and no one is asking to negotiate some unity that does not exist. Forcefully holding unwilling peoples together is not unity, is it? Listen Victor, all re-structuralists believe in one Nigeria; they want a strong, united and prosperous Nigeria as much as any northerner, even more so than those who wear a badge of patriotism on their sleeves. But what we re-structuralists ask is good faith negotiations among all the stakeholders to agree on the terms of that unity. Unity cannot and must not be imposed by any group on its own terms. If oil rather than blood has to be spilled to get an oil-obsessed north to that negotiating table, so be it. After freedom, we can clean up and start again. There is no freedom without a price, and you can’t pay that price without making some sacrifice.
son…we would whip you into shape as we whupped your forefathers…one nigeria…
Iska. .I sort of like you. . We did whip their fathers and forefathers into some kind of shape. .but as you can see 50 years after we didn’t succeed in bending them..is there any special thing that makes you think we’ll do better this time around? Or do you want an Arab -Israeli situation here?
no…there is nothing to it…it is just a 6 months misadventure…do you see bafrans carrying arms?…no…they are migrating in droves to lagos to do street trading and pay their taxes…as for the oil boys…they know, and we know that it is business as usual…war pays dividends…6 months…mark my words…
Ok Iska, enjoy your optimism, but because I fear for Nigeria my country, I prefer to remain a pragmatic realist; it’s still better to jaw-jaw than to war-war.
you cannot jaw jaw with miscreants who are challenging the authority of the state…you leave them…you re-strategise…very soon they will bomb themselves out of option…then you go in, mop them up and bury them at sea…
Iska, again you’re likely right on strategy…mop them up and bury them at sea…like America buried Osama bin-Laden at sea…yet Al-quaeda and ISIL continue to thrive… you can bury “miscreants” as you propose, my fear is that those ”miscreants” represent ideas you cannot bury permanently. And talk of burying, my dear Iska, which is the more important asset of a State, any State, its citizens or its mineral resources? Think about it, before you decide which one we should bury first.
ideas anchored strictly on materialism do not last in the face of superior power…crush the miscreants…
Iska. .aren’t you the funny one. ..kindly let me in on the type of ideas that do not ultimately reduce to martial ism. Better hesitate before plunging, you might get hurt, intellectually that is.
me get hurt?…my son…there is a fulbe proverb that says…ants cannot eat a bottle…
Well Iska, dodging the question is as good an answer as any. But for your information, I am not your son. I know that in Fulbe culture you can have many sons you know not who or where they are, street children and all, but am not one of your missing ones. Sorry, keep searching.
you know…who told you?
If not for the bombing< who will listen to them? who is listening to BIAFRA Boys now?
biafra boys…miscreants…
What form of greeting is that? They are only exercising their Niger-Delta fundamental rights and has nothing to do with Islam. They are only drawing attention to something worthy of research and evaluation.
We will review and take appropriate action.