THE arms turn-in by repentant militants in Bayelsa State, which started on Friday, reached its peak, yesterday, with the State Government, in conjunction with the Presidential Amnesty Committee, formally receiving and displaying arms surrendered by militants in a colorful ceremony.
The development came on the heels of threats by the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) to pull out of talks with the government and resume attacks on oil facilities next month.
MEND has alleged bribery, insincerity, as well as divide-and-rule syndrome of the Federal and State Governments as part of the reasons it is pulling out from talks with government.
At the Bayelsa handing over ceremony, which took place at the Peace Park, in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State Peace and Reconciliation Committee, headed by Chief James Japheth, said that they had received a total of 520 guns and rifles, 95,970 rounds of ammunition and 14 gunboats.
All the 32 militants that went to Abuja to accept the presidential offer were present at the occasion and pledged to keep to their promise of laying down their arm.
Out of a total of 95,970 ammunition recovered, the leader of all the repentant militants, Mr. Victor Ben, contributed 80,336 rounds.
He had surrendered six brandy guns, 26 GPMG, 30 MG, 130 AK-47, nine Berretta pistols, 76 hand grenades (81mm), three mortar bombs (60mm), 34 dynamite (136 kg), seven rocket launchers, 49 cartridges, four gunboats and 31 military grenades.
While surrendering his arms, Boyloaf, who was among the three selected militants to speak on behalf of his colleagues in arm struggle, said it was difficult for him to convince other militant leaders and men to toe his line.
His words: “Today, we keep to our words by surrendering our arms in line with our declaration of August 7, when we accepted the Federal Government Amnesty at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
“As we lay down our arms, this struggle will continue. But this time it will be constructive negotiation and dialogue, which we believe is the way forward.
“We are proud of what we did and stood for, which is genuinely a movement for the emancipation of our land; and history will remember us for our courage.”
He pleaded that he is holding the present administration of President Yar’Adua for his words to facilitate the development of the Niger Delta region and that the region should be captured in the Vision 20-2020 programme.
He also took time to sympathise with the families of those, who had lost their lives in the cause of the struggle.
Meanwhile, MEND said yesterday it had suspended talks with the Special Adviser to the President on the Amnesty, Mr. Timi Alaibe, and threatened to resume attacks on oil facilities by September 15.
Effort by The Guardian to reach Mr. Alaibe repeatedly proved abortive.
MEND said it was pulling out of talks with the government because it expected disarmament without the real issues affecting the Niger Delta being addressed.
The group’s spokesperson, Jomo Gbomo, explained that the amnesty programme seemed to have achieved separating those who still have the zeal to fight for Niger Delta freedom from those who were in it for the money.
Gbomo alleged that bribery of militants was again re-enacted in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State yesterday, where weapons mostly bought by the government were displayed “and the boys separated from the men in the circus.”
He said: “The charade witnessed in Bayelsa is not an indication of success but that of failure considering that the energy put into that event could have been better used in deliberating on the root issues collated in the Niger Delta Technical Committee Report, which addressed such germane issues from the Willinks Commission of 1958 to date.”
Gbomo explained that in the midst of such sheer deceit, MEND would be compelled to resume ferocious attacks on the oil industry at the end of its unilaterally declared ceasefire on September 15, 2009.
He said this is “to prove that weapons being displayed are mostly government-owned and those surrendering them have not been part of the previous campaigns like Hurricanes Barbarossa, Piper Alpha and Moses that brought the government to their knees.
He continued: “MEND will not enter into talks with governors from the region, who have tainted the amnesty programme with politics and monetary inducements.
“Many of the boys, who have received money today (yesterday), will at best squander it on material things and what happens next can best be left to the imagination.”
He said MEND’s solemn pledge to the people of the Niger Delta “still remains to emancipate the region from the forces that have held it down for over 50 years with divide and rule, monetary inducements and treachery.”
However, the Bayelsa Government has debunked MEND’s claim that the government bought the arms that were returned by militants yesterday.
“Everybody saw clearly what happened because it was a live event,” said government spokesperson, Preye Wariowei, an assistant special assistant.
According to him, the government has no business buying guns. “We have not done it before and can’t do it now.”
“But we will continue to receive repentant militants and rehabilitate them in the spirit of the amnesty.
“We urge the remaining militants to turn in their arms and accept the amnesty offer. Those in MEND should also do same and stop this propaganda,” he said.