The new militant group operating in the oil-rich region of southern Nigeria, the Niger Delta Avengers has responded to a first generation militant group, Movement For the Emancipation of The Niger Delta, MEND which derided the group in the statement on Tuesday, June 7, 2016.
In a statement published on the Avengers’ website titled, MEND Your Criminal Days Are Over, the new age militants accused Governor Adams Oshiomhole and former Bayelsa governor, Chief Timipre Sylva of sponsoring the statement from MEND which insulted the Avengers and praised President Muhammadu Buhari.
MEND, which is believed to be defunct, is militant group that operated in the Niger Delta region from 1996 to 2009 when it accepted a presidential amnesty offered by late President Musa Yar’Adua and subsequently disbanded.
“We appeal to the general public and all sane minds on the activities of Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) to disregards all purported statements and misplaced threat emanating from disbanded criminal elements like the so-called MEND,” the group’s spokesman, Brigadier General Mudoch Agbinibo said.
“Movement For the Emancipation of The Niger Delta [that] are political sidekicks and desperations from Gov. Adams Oshiomhole of Edo state, Mr. Timipre Silva and their political paymasters to hold their political party to the jugular of the affairs of the Niger Delta Region.
“That our struggle is focused on the liberation of the People of Niger Delta from decades of divisive rule and exclusion.
“We are watching keenly their regretful efforts at rebranding and regrouping criminal elements in the region for their short political gains and territories.
“The Niger Delta Avengers is unperturbed, we have mandate that is clearly a departure of those old tactics of the defunct so-called MEND that was indulged in kidnapping, hostage taking, sea piracy, illegal oil bunkering, bank robberies and social crimes, the likes of Boyloafs, Ateke Toms, were associated to in their days in the name of struggle.
“The wind of change in the Niger Delta struggle has come, we are are young, smart, and focused Niger deltans. Our mandate is to liberate the Niger Delta people; we don’t run after pipeline contracts.
“God bless the Niger Delta People,” the statement ended.
The Niger Delta Avengers
Niger Delta Avengers is a new militancy group that is operating in the oil-rich region of Southern Nigeria.
The militants say they are waging a war for a free Niger Delta Republic in what it tags, Operation Red Economy, with a view of halting crude oil production in Nigeria to force the government to grant the group’s demands.
The Avengers claim it has reduced oil production in the country to less than one million barrels a day. An analyst at VOA News corroborates the militants’ claims saying that oil production has dropped below one million barrels a day due to the waves of attacks on pipelines and oil installations.
The militant group has released its rules of engagement and says that it doesn’t kill anybody or attack oil workers or soldiers. The Delta Avengers called on all other groups operating in the region to abide by these rules of engagement. “We need God now, more than ever,” the group said in a statement.
The Niger Delta Avengers has presented an 11-point demand to President Muhammadu Buhari and the first is the implementation of the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference. [Download Conference report HERE.]
Pro-Biafra secessionist group, Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB,has pledged “total allegiance” to the Niger Delta Avengers extolling the militant group for supporting the cause of a free Biafra. MASSOB embraces the tenets of nonviolence. It is led by Ralph Uwazuruike, a lawyer.
The MEND Factor
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, is believed to be a defunct guerrilla militant group and one of the largest of the groups which waged a campaign against oil production in the Niger Delta region that successfully crippled the nation’s economy from 2005 till 2009.
Some of the leaders of MEND were Henry Okah, who is currently serving a 24-year jail term for the October 1, 2010 bombing in Abuja; Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo who is in a running battle with the Buhari government and has called on the Avengers to embrace dialogue with the federal government; Ateke Tom, whose Niger Delta Vigilante merged with MEND; and Ebikabowei Victor Ben, also known as Boyloaf who recently named Tompolo as the sponsor of the Niger Delta Avengers.
At the height of the war, the late President Musa Yar’Adua declared Tompolo as the most wanted man in Nigeria. The Niger Delta restiveness only ended when the late President Musa Yar’Adua successfully negotiated a cease-fire and launched the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme in 2009.
Leaders of MEND took the presidential amnesty and ended the conflict.
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