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Niger Delta Avengers, the militant group that
had claimed responsibility for many sabotage
attacks in Niger Delta last year, said that it
has asked its fighters to prepare to fight the
“enemy” as it claimed Nigerian authorities
were not ready for dialogue.
The Avengers declared a ceasefire last year
after staging major attacks on oil facilities
crippling Nigeria’s oil output.
The attacks cut Nigeria’s oil production, which
stood at 2.1 million barrels per day (bpd) at
the start of 2016, by more than a third in
June 2016, although the oil minister said in
December pipeline repairs lifted output to
nearly 1.8 million bpd.
“It has been evidently clear that the Nigerian
state is not ready for any form of dialogue
and negotiation,” the Niger Delta Avengers
said in a statement posted on their website.
“All fighters and commands are hereby placed
on high readiness in your webs of operations
to hit and knock the enemy very hard,” the
group said.
It declared the start of an “Operations Walls
of Jericho and Hurricane Joshua … to reclaim
our motherland” but did not say whether this
meant an end of the ceasefire or gave any
details
In the past six months, government has held
talks with Niger Delta leaders to address
grievances of poverty and oil pollution. In his
New Year speech, President Muhammadu
Buhari also spoke about government’s
readiness to forge peace in the region.
But the militants have complained that no
progress has been made.
The Avengers, like other militant groups, has
split into different factions, which struggle to
control their fighters, unemployed young men
who work for anybody who pays them.
Another former militant group, the Movement
for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta
(MEND), which had agreed to lay down arms
in 2009, had said a week ago it had lost trust
in the government to bring peace to the
region.
Those behind the pipeline attacks, which
began in early 2016, say they want a greater
share of Nigeria’s energy wealth to go to the
southern region.
The frequency of attacks has diminished since
President Muhammadu Buhari held talks with
community leaders but there are sporadic
attacks, most recently in late November.
[b]OUR UNRELIABLE APROKO[/b] reports officers of
the Nigerian Army are yet to respond to the
renewed threat by the Niger Delta militants
because they are still looking through the
bible on what they will call their own counter
operation.
