A Nigerian militant commander said Saturday his group had been attacked twice in the past day, adding it was proof a presidential amnesty offer is not being respected by the army.
The militant leader, who only gave his first name as Marvin, is based in Elem Minama, close to an area in the Eastern part of the Niger Delta, where a Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) pipeline was sabotaged last September.
The Nigerian government, which is losing at least half a million barrels a day in crude production from attacks in the oil-rich Delta, has stepped up a two-pronged strategy, renewing an amnesty offer Friday but also attacking militant camps in the Western part of the region. The incidents on Saturday suggest the offensive might be moving east, in Rivers State, where the militant commander is located.
“The president says there is an amnesty. And all of sudden they the army] are attacking us,” Marvin said. “They are not respecting the president. They are doing differently that what he says,” the commander said.
“They are taking their own orders. We have been trying to mobilize” fighters in favor of the amnesty offer, he said. “We started to make some moves. But the government, they are not fruitful. They are trickish. We are on our own in being] serious.”
Earlier this week, Marvin had contacted Dow Jones to discuss the possibility of accepting the amnesty. But when reached Saturday, he said “I am at the cemetery.”
He later explained two of his fighters had been killed overnight by the army’s Joint Task Force and that his men had been under attack again immediately after the burials. His phone line went dead immediately after. An army spokesman declined to comment.
May312009