Nigerian militant group MEND said on Wednesday it had instructed armed groups in the Niger Delta to unleash a month of “mayhem” to press its case for more autonomy in the oil-producing region.
Militants have staged 10 attacks on Western oil facilities in the delta in the last nine days, kidnapping dozens of foreign workers and curbing output from the world’s eighth largest oil exporter.
“Groups are responding to a call we made to unleash mayhem in the delta,” said a spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, who uses the pseudonym Jomo Gbomo, in an e-mail to Reuters. “We will pause temporarily in about one month’s time.” The surge in violence coincides with the transition from one government to another after disputed elections last month which gave Umaru Yar’Adua of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) a landslide victory.
Yar’Adua has chosen Goodluck Jonathan, a state governor from the delta, as his vice president and the new government is due to be inaugurated on May 29.
MEND said it was angry with Jonathan.
“Forgetting that we were instrumental to his assuming that office, he calls us criminals and terrorists,” Gbomo said.
Three MEND bombings on Tuesday forced Italian oil company Agip, a unit of Eni , to cut output there by 98,000 barrels per day. Gbomo said he had instructed fighters to inflict more damage on the pipelines and possibly attack the nearby Brass crude oil export terminal itself.