News

Don’t Abduct, Attack Soldiers, Avengers Warn Other N-Delta Militants

Published

9 years ago

June 4, 2016

NIGER Delta Avengers, NDA, Saturday, said its war was not against soldiers and oil workers, but on oil installations and warned other emerging groups to desist, henceforth, from kidnapping and attacking soldiers.
The militant group also disowned the new groups, claiming to have anti-aircraft missiles, warning them to desist from targeting or any aircraft or it would go after them.
In a statement by its spokesperson, Brigadier General Mudoch Agbinibo, said: “The high command is calling on all groups in Rivers, Ondo, Delta, Bayelsa, Cross River, and Akwa Ibom to not indulge in any act of kidnapping and attacking of soldiers. The war is on oil installations; “Operation on Flow of Oil.”
It read: “The liberation of the Niger Delta people has taken a new swing with the daily emergence of new groups all over the region. The Avengers are calling on all groups in the region to be strong and resolute as it is obvious that God is on our side.”
“The groups are much now both real and unreal but if you really fighting for the liberation of the Niger delta people, the high command of the Avengers is calling on you not to attack any soldier and those claiming to have anti aircraft missiles should deist from targeting any aircraft.
Let us be careful not offend God in the process of trying to liberate our people from the shackles of the Nigerian government because we need God more than anything right now. We also need the international community as well. Hence, we must desist from any life threatening actions that will derail our genuine struggle for our people,” the Avengers said.
“All groups are hereby discouraged from indulging in harassing oil workers and soldiers. We urge you all to help any oil workers or soldiers you see in distress.
“The military warplanes hovering round our towns and villages have not strike a soul or destroy any property, so those groups with anti aircraft missiles should dry their gunpowder,” it said.
The group added, “When it is time to engage the military in combat, the whole world will know that they started the war, not the Avengers. The Niger Delta Avengers’ high command will pass the message round that it is time to engage on gun battle when the time comes.”
“So far, we have not engaged the Nigeria military in combat; despite the heavy presence of military on the pipelines. we still find way to carry out our actions without attacking soldiers. The avengers will deal with any group that refuses and attack military,” it added.
Meanwhile, the National Coalition of the Niger Delta Ex-Agitators, NCNDE, called on the Federal Government to flush out the Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, which they described as criminal elements allegedly sponsored by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to stoke troubles from the region.
President of NCNDE, Israel Akpodoro who stated this while chatting with newsmen, alleged they that the PDP was in want of goading the Federal Government into military confrontation that may provoke public outcry especially “the foreign communities with the ultimate aim of discrediting the All Progressives Congress, APC led administration at home and abroad”.
According to Akpodoro, the second aim of the Avengers was to cripple the Nigerian economy to give reasons for the PDP to gloat and mock the administration, adding that “such act is unpatriotic”.
Urging the Federal Government to go all out for those he described as criminal elements masquerading as freedom fighters and their sponsors, he said “no amount of subterfuge can make anyone believe that the bad losers in the PDP are not behind the economic saboteurs.
“The avengers are biting more than they can chew; Nigerians know that the Avengers are drawn from the ex-militants who were on the payroll of the Amnesty office of the Federal Government but are now serving few failed self acclaimed leaders from the region”.
Holding that the Nigerian Army has all it takes to bring the last member of the avengers to justice, Akpodoro said that “no person or group of persons can threaten to kill President Buhari. The avengers in their empty and barefooted threats to kill the President if he visited Ogoni land was an expression of madness taken into lunatic fringe.
He berated the leaders of the region for keeping silent rather than cautioning the “sponsors of the criminal group. Our leaders should be bold in their stance against the perpetrators of hostilities occasioned by vandalism of oil and gas facilities in the region”.
Speaking further, he frowned at media reports credited Governor Fayose of Ekiti State on the issue, noting that his actions were unbecoming of a supposed state executive.
He called on the youth in the region to embrace peace in order to open a new vista of accelerated development and growth in the region, saying, “no ethnic group has the right hold the nation to ransom”.
“When Jonathan was the President, he didn’t contemplate the clean up of Ogoni land neither did he see the East-West road as a need for the people of the region. While he held sway, we the people of the region allowed ethnic sentiments to blur our senses of reasoning. They looted our commonwealth blind only for the beneficiaries of the six years misrule to turn around to sponsor hostilities against the Federal Government. Buhari should consider making another Odi in any of the hotbeds of criminal activities in the region,” Akpodoro added.