Angered by Buhari’s World Bank comment, NNPC saga, militants vow to stop oil exploration

Following an alleged directive by President Muhammadu Buhari that the World Bank should concentrate their intervention efforts in the North alone, a coalition of militants in the Niger Delta have vowed to resume attacks on oil installations.

The group also expressed anger over the current scandal involving the Group Managing Director of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru and the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu.
Due to these developments, the militants said that they have no choice but “to activate our digital strike team to swing into action to stop further exploration and exportation of oil from the Niger Delta.”

The militant groups are the Niger Delta Revolutionary Crusaders (NDRC) and 21st Century Youths of Niger Delta.
The group stated their reactions to the recent development in the country in a statement by WOI Izon Ebi. The militants frowned at what they described as the Federal Government’s delay strategies and calculated use of Operation Crocodile Smile II, to hinder the implementation of the agreement it had with the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF).

The statement read in part, “The current revelation of the World Bank and the present NNPC scandal has given us no choice but to activate our digital strike team to swing into action to stop further exploration and exportation of oil from the Niger Delta.

“For it is very obvious that this present administration is for the North only, without putting into cognizance that 90 per cent of the resources that sustain this nation is from the Niger Delta.

“We want to warn that this deliberate provocation and intimidation by the northern oppressors to provoke the Niger Delta people would be counterproductive because we are going to resist them with the last drop of our blood and a devastating response.”

Vowing “to start attack on all oil infrastructures,” the militants said, “We would not allow our resources to be used to fund only the North and intimidate us, rather than developing the Niger Delta deprived of its God-given resources since 1958.

“The antics of their divide and rule tactics would never work again in the Niger Delta in this 21st century because the world and all honest Nigerians have seen the antics and tactics of the federal governments’ insensitivity and insincerity after the adoption of the 16-point agenda of PANDEF on the 3rd of August 2017.

“It is still very fresh in our minds the betrayal of Isaac Boro to keep Nigerian one, the killing of Ken Saro Wiwa and the Ogoni 9 and the dehumanization of their bodies with acid, the genocide in Odi, the genocide in Gbaramatu Kingdom.”

READ ALSO: My rift with Baru: How Nigerians got it wrong –Kachikwu

The group went further to say, “We the NDRC and the 21st Century Youths and all affiliate organizations are determined to prove to the world that we are not cowards. The present military operation called Operation Crocodile Smile II that is currently going on in the Niger Delta would not deter us neither would we be intimidated because the current agitators have succeeded in taking the struggle from analogue to digital.”

“We have successfully proven to our oppressors before the ceasefire that we have the capacity to stop the flow of our God-given resources as our clamour and fight is for equity and justice. We have also succeeded in educating our brothers that we do not have any problem with the military because the military are victims of the northern political elite’ conspiracy because of our God-given resources.”

Respite on attacks on oil installations by Niger Delta militants came after the Federal Government and PANDEF met last year. Following the agreement the leaders of the region reached with the government, the angry militants declared a ceasefire and have maintained it.

 

 

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