By: Our Correspondent
Despite the huge condemnation of the activities of militant group, Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), over the current bombings of oil and gas facilities in Delta State, the group seems undeterred as it has vowed to destroy more oil and gas, including government facilities in Calabar, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja.
Recall that spokesman of Ijaw Youths Congress (IYC), Barrister Eric Omare, has recently slammed the group for the deadly attacks, saying that there was no rationalization for NDA to embark on destruction of oil facilities thereby polluting the region’s environment.
Omare while speaking in Yenogoa, Bayelsa State capital, called on President
Muhammadu Buhari to unmask the perpetrators to save innocent persons and
communities in the region from destruction.
Said he: “We do not see the justification in the Niger Delta Avengers’ embarking on destruction of oil facilities because Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo has denounced the group.
“I think Tompolo did the proper thing by coming out to inform the entire world that he was not part of the NDA when there were insinuations to the effect that he was behind them.
“As with other cases of attack on oil facilities, the Niger Delta environment and people are the ultimate victims and would suffer from these latest attacks. The IYC believes that irrespective of their grievances, there are better ways of expressing them rather than contributing to the further destruction of the already massively degraded Niger Delta environment.
“The security agencies should go after the real culprits and not innocent communities and people in the region. From our experience, the security personnel in a bid to impress their superiors and justify the huge amount of money budgeted for the purpose, always attack innocent communities and
people.
“This must not be allowed to happen this time around. We would also advise the Federal Government to be prompt in directing security agencies to deal with insurgent groups all over the country including the Fulani herdsmen who have been killing innocent Nigerians just like they have just directed in respect of the Niger Delta Avengers.”
Another group, Niger Delta Riverine Security also criticized the group,
describing it as “a criminal and devilish group, which is interested in turning the Niger Delta into a region where the safety of lives and property is not guaranteed.”
Leader of the group, Commander Oduku said NDA was interested in crippling
economic activities in the Niger Delta and Nigeria and advised the youths in the region not to have anything to do with them.
A former militant leader and member of the Delta State Waterways and Land Security Committee, Mr. Goodday Smith, dissociated himself from the heinous activities of the group, saying “those who are aggrieved in one way or the other with the Federal Government should channel their grievances to the appropriate quarters, instead of engaging in such acts of destruction of oil installations.”
For the defunct Niger Delta Liberation Front, NDLF, members of Niger Delta
Avengers should come out boldly to declare their mission if the group has a good motive for the region and stop behaving like cowards.
“If they have genuine intentions for the region, they should be bold enough to come out and make their demands known. When we were carrying out our activities under the leadership of the late “General” John Togo, we did not hide our identity,” its spokesman, Colonel Mark Anthony said in a statement.
NDLF called for the sack of the current Amnesty Chairman, Paul Boroh as he
was not “in touch with Niger Delta major ex-agitators’’ and “another chairman who knows the boys in the creeks should be appointed and this will stop the current oil war’’.
