Nigeria’s military Wednesday signalled it would beef up its presence in the treacherously violent oil-producing Niger Delta, and was determined to show it superiority over the militant groups that have been kidnapping oil workers and attacking its troops.
The Chief of Defence Staff, Army General Martin-Luther Agwai, said the recent escalation of violence between troops deployed in the Niger Delta to provide security and maintain peace and militant youths in the area had led to unnecessary loss of lives.
A total of 12 persons were killed Sunday in the creeks of the Niger Delta when militant youths engaged the troops in a gun duel.
Agwai said the Nigerian military took ‘special exception to any individual or group that use the name ‘freedom fighter’ in Nigeria’s democratic environment.’
The Nigerian constitution, he added, provided adequate platforms and formidable environment for addressing genuine grievances without recourse to violence.
He said the only groups constitutionally vested with the power to carry arms in Nigeria were the armed forces, the Nigeria police and some paramilitary organizations.
‘Other individuals or groups, apart from those mentioned above, that traffic, sell or carry arms and ammunition (are) committing illegality and will be treated in accordance with the law,’ Agwai said.
He said troops deployed in the Niger Delta were being strengthened and reorganized to ensure that they gained the confidence of the Niger Delta people.
‘New channels of communication are being established to network information between all stakeholders in the Niger Delta,’ he said.
Heavily armed Niger Delta youths have abducted close to 20 expatriate oil workers this month alone. They have engaged men of the armed forces in gun duels recording fatalities on either side.
The militant youths want multinational oil companies operating in the region to provide jobs, remediate the environment that has been negatively impacted by oil exploitation and provide higher returns for the region from proceeds of oil exports.
Ethnic Ijaw youths in the region also want the immediate release of two of their leaders, Mujahideen Asari Dokubo, standing trial in Abuja for treason, and the impeached governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, standing trial in Abuja for looting his state’s treasury while in office.
Dokubo waged a separatist war against Nigeria in 2004 when he declared that the country lacked legitimacy.
Alamieyeseigha was impeached by his state’s parliament last December upon his return from London where he had jumped bail rather than face money laundering charges in the United Kingdom.