ONE of the Commanders of the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND), Commander Ogunbos, who led the squad that had a fierce gun battle with the Joint Task Force (JTF) on the Niger-Delta during the Easter festivity at Igbomotoru in Bayelsa State, opened up exclusively to Saturday Vanguard, weekend, on the horrendous encounter and strongly rebutted the claim by the task force that 18 militants lost their lives.
Ogunbos who interacted in impeccable English with Saturday Vanguard is also the leader of the Niger-Delta Vigilante Force in Bayelsa State and a graduate according to him.
He spoke for more than one hour on phone, in the early hours of yesterday, with this reporter, giving insight into why he is fighting for the freedom of the Niger-Delta people, his grouse against Nigerian leaders, conditions for acceptance of amnesty by freedom fighters and his anger with the media over the Niger-Delta crises.
First, he placed on record that Saturday Vanguard is the first newspaper he is speaking to since the gun battle with the JTF because he wanted a paper that would give an accurate account of the situation , and not exacerbate or tell the opposite of what happened or attribute things to him even when he did not speak with the paper. He mentioned a national newspaper (not Saturday Vanguard) that claimed to have spoken to him when he did not grant any interview.
According to the MEND Commander, who was linked to Saturday Vanguard by another senior Commander of MEND. He, (Ogunbos) was coming from an undisclosed location within his territory in the creeks of Bayelsa State when he and his squad ran into an ambush of the troops of the JTF, and because he did not have the intention of fighting them, he tactically turned back.
“I am not afraid and the gods of Niger-Delta will never allow me to be afraid. I am not in any battle with the JTF. I have not killed any of them and my focus on the Niger-Delta struggle is clear, we are fighting for the emancipation of our people”, he said.
Commander Ogunbos said he retreated to let the JTF soldiers to go their way but he found out that instead of going their way, they pursued him and he had take up the cudgel when he saw that the supposed handshake had crossed the waist to the elbow region.
In his words, “They laid ambush and shot at our boats, I ran but still saw them following me. Unfortunately for them, I had to lay ambush for them too and one of the soldiers was killed while others escaped from our hands”.
He said the militant group did not want to retaliate the attack by the JTF because they were near a community and did not want the soldiers to use confrontation with them as a guise to invade communities and kill innocent villagers.
“They said that they sunk four of our boats and that 15 of our men or so were killed. I want to tell you that there is nothing like that. Nobody was killed not to talk of 15, 18 persons or those numbers they are quoting were killed.. Not even a bullet got into my boat. I have not offended the gods of Ijaw land, so they will not allow their guns to enter me, that is the truth”, he stated.
He said he was angry when he was told that a newspaper reported that “I spoke to it on the encounter with the JTF and quoted me to have said certain things. I want to tell you categorically that I did not speak to that newspaper. You (reporter), is the first person I am speaking to since the encounter.”
Justifying his anger against the press, he said that sometime ago, the Bayelsa state governor, Chief Timipre Sylva said he was ashamed of the youths of the state because out of the 70 of them the government sent out for a training programme, only one passed.
He said that he (Ogunbos) spoke to some journalists, saying that he was ashamed of Chief Sylva as a governor for failing to provide functional educational materials and facilities for the youths of the state to excel in their educational endeavours..
He said that part of the problem of the state for which the freedom fighters have cried themselves hoarse was that the schools in the state were ill-equipped where they exist at all and should be resuscitated. The MEND commander said he was taken aback when one of the newspapers reported that he (Ogunbos) said that he, like Sylva, was ashamed of the performance of the youths.
According to him, “I am not a criminal. Why should anybody call me a criminal because I am asking for my fundamental rights as a Nigerian from the Niger-Delta ? Am I a criminal for asking that the country should revert to true federalism? Am I a criminal because I am saying that my people should be given functional education?
Am I criminal because I am saying that my region is producing the wealth of this country and we are entitled to the benefits of such wealth also? Tell me what are they calling me a criminal for”.
He insisted it was unfair to report that the JTF killed 18 militants or thereabout when nothing of such happened even if the task force fed the media with such information, saying, “I think the media should get the other side of the story when they are reporting events in the Niger-Delta, they should be careful so as not to escalate the crisis”.
Pointing out that he hails from an oil community in Bayelsa state, where the Shell Petroleum Development Company has over 30 oil wells and Agip, about six oil wells or so and yet, his brother, who is also a graduate cannot survive unless he goes to the Rivers to pack sand, Ogunbos said the injustice on the people of the Niger-Delta has become unbearable.
On amnesty to militants, he said, “I do not accept amnesty based on the fact that our leaders are not trustworthy”.
He said it was difficult to understand the Nigerian system, adding that if former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar could not understand the Ex- President and his former boss, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who he worked with for eight years and if Obasanjo could stab Atiku at the back after both of them appeared to have re-united, “then, it is difficult for the freedom fighters in the Niger-Delta to understand Yar’Adua and what he meant by his amnesty”.
Pressed to give the conditions on which militants would be ready to accept amnesty, he said he was not interested in giving any condition, but, his decision to speak to Saturday Vanguard was to clarify that he did not make the comments attributed to him in the press on the encounter with the JTF.
“I am not even interested in telling anybody what happened in the encounter. I don’t really care. We know what we are fighting for. Some of those talking do not even know how our minds work but we know what our people want and we are drawing attention to them.
“The fact that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan is the Vice President today is not because he fought for it. It is because of what we are doing in the creeks to draw attention to our problems. So he should do the right thing now that he is there”.
When reminded that the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshall Paul Dike who also hail from the Niger-Delta at a reception for him by the Delta State Government recently implored Niger-Delta youths to lay down their arms and embrace dialogue, he said the people of the region have dialogued for long time without solution and since the only language the Nigerian leadership understand is the language of force, they would continue to apply force.
Told that it was not everybody carrying gun in the creek that is a freedom fighter and that has given the struggle a bad name, he said, “We are doing everything possible to flush them out but what the genuine freedom fighters are doing is our way of protesting the injustice in the Nigerian system.
“We are crying for freedom for the entire country, not just Niger-Delta. Our fighting today goes beyond the streets of Niger-Delta. We are saying that they should give us our human rights, they should give us shelter”, he added.
Pressed further on what the government should do for the militants to accept amnesty and allow a breathing space for development since Julius Berger abandoned its contract on East-West Road because of insecurity, and there is no way development can take place in the region in such an atmosphere, he said the interview was not about amnesty but since the reporter was insisting, “I will say that all those being detained by the government in respect of the Niger-Delta struggle, including Henry Okah should be released .This is the first condition.
It is only when those who have been detained are released that we, who are fighting can sit down to listen to them and know whether they are serious in what they are talking.
“Of course, the next thing is for them to come up with their package of developing the region. Right now, there is nothing to show that they want to develop the region; everything I am seeing is wrapped in deceit, nothing tangible to the best of my knowledge. They should make provision for quality education of the people; they should make provision for employment of our youths, they keep saying that they are working things out, we don’t see what they are doing”, he said.
Ogunbos also suggested that the federal government should be sincere on what they do and say regarding the Niger-Delta crises and should also not see those that oppose the system as enemies, but, see them as people criticizing them to help them correct existing anomalies.
In his words, “There is no state without a level of lawlessness and Nigeria is not an exception. So, the government should not say because the youths of the Niger-Delta are agitating for their rights, then, they are criminals and lawless”.
He pointed out also that the judiciary, as the last hope of the common man should be left to be truly independent, not to be manipulated by the powers that be to witch-hunt the poor, as all the laws in the country, in one way or the other, are oppressive of the poor and protector of the rich.
“The way the law is applied to the poor in this country is different from the way it is applied to the rich. Let justice be equal to everyone of us. The difference between the leadership of God and man is that God gave His laws and was the first person to fulfil them but our leaders don’t fulfil the laws they have made, they use it to oppress the citizens. They are people controlling the judges and they tell them the judgment to deliver.
How can people not be free to express themselves and you jail them when they go to court to seek justice and you think things will work? It is not impossible.
“Go to the Prisons and carry out your investigation and you will find out that many people are being detained for the crimes they did not commit and there is no way for them to say their mind because the laws have been made to castrate them”, he said.
Ogunbos said he was being guided and protected in his struggle for emancipation of the people of the region by the gods and as long as the swamps remain his home, and he and other freedom fighters have not offended the gods, they would continue to guide them and no gun fired at him by the enemies of the gods would pierce his body.