Politics

Why we insist on secession –Avengers

Published

8 years ago

June 10, 2016

The Niger Delta militants, continued with attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta, Thursday evening, with the bombing of a pipeline belonging to the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

According to sources, the incident happened at 7:40pm around the Shalomi Creek in Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State.

The Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, and other militant groups in the region are yet to claim responsibility for the attack.

A military source, speaking under condition of anonymity, confirmed the development.

The source said details of the incident were still sketchy due to the time it took place.

However, the Niger Delta Avengers, earlier on Thursday, threatened to secede from the country, saying that successive governments had been unfair to the people of the Niger Delta region.

It also called on the international community, especially Britain, France, United States, Russia and China not to allow the region to go the way of Sudan.

The group, in a statement issued by its spokesperson, Murdoch Agbinibo, insisted that all that successive governments wanted was the flow of crude oil from the region and not its development, vowing to remedy the age-long devastation against the region with every means necessary.

The statement reads in part: “Since the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914 to date, our resources have been used to sustain the political administrative live-wire of Nigeria to the exclusion of the Niger Delta.

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“Finally, we are calling on the international community to come and support the restoration of our right to peaceful self-determination from this tragedy of 1914 that has expired since 2014.

“We want our resources back to restore the essence of human life in our region for generations to come because Nigeria has failed to do that. The world should not wait until we go the Sudan way. Enough is enough.

“This history of terror, we the Niger Delta Avengers will resist and correct with every means necessary. We have nothing to lose in the battle ahead.”

It added, “Justice, they say, is only found within the structure of a nation state; rather than provide justice, the Nigerian government has decided to mobilise her military might to intimidate, torture, maim, victimise and bombard a section of the nation and her citizenry to allow the free flow of our oil.

“Since the day crude oil was discovered in commercial quantity and quality in Oloibiri in the present day Bayelsa State, what we have being asking from successive governments in Nigeria is potable drinking water, electricity, roads, employment, quality education, resource control and inclusive governance.”

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