The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has, for the first time, introduced a regional dimension into its criminal campaign and violence against the economic and financial interests of the country. The militant group declared last week that it was going to launch series of attacks on Northern interests.
The declaration was ambiguous as to what exactly would be their immediate targets. It was not clear as at press time, whether they are going to attack some specific locations in the Northern part of the country, or the people of northern extraction presently living in the oil producing region of the Niger Delta.
In what analysts described as a bizarre development, MEND declared last week that it was serving the country a warning of major terrorist attacks across the North. The militants, before their recent threat, had been using the swampy creeks as their operational base where they launched deadly attacks on oil installations in the oil- producing region of the country.
In a regionally-laden press statement, electronically mailed to media organizations, MEND had given Nigerians from the Niger Delta extraction living in northern Nigeria eight weeks ultimatum to return home to avoid any sort of reprisal attack the militants’ widespread attacks in the North may trigger. It also warned people of northern extraction residing in the oil-producing areas to move out of the region before the expiration of ultimatum.
The embattled militant organization declared in a statement that people of Niger Delta origin should “return home within the next eight weeks because a major event will occur in that part of the country (Northern Nigeria) and reprisal attacks directed at them cannot be ruled out.”
Despite the ongoing military offensive against the militants in the creeks by the Federal Government troops, the Joint Task Force (JTF), the militants were still carrying out their attacks on oil installations in the region. The militant group had, only last Friday, destroyed oil and gas facilities belonging to Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC) in Nembe creek, Bayelsa State. They destroyed facility delivers crude oil to the Brass export terminals.
In the last fortnight alone, MEND had destroyed oil facilities belonging to Chevron, Shell and NAOC. In its attack on Shell facility last Wednesday, about 185,000 barrels of oil per day were lost. Chevron also shut in 100, 000 barrels per day following the destruction of its flow station.
NAOC, a subsidiary of Italian energy firm, had confirmed the attack on the pipeline, which feeds its Brass export terminal in Bayelsa State. About 33,000 barrels of crude per day were shut in. The statement issued by Agip’s headquarters explained that the production from the facility would be deferred until further notice. The total amount of production loss currently is about 33,000 barrels of oil a day, of which 6,000 barrels and 437,000 of the about two million cubic meters of natural gas belong to the company, the statement said.
Again, MEND had destroyed a major crude oil pipeline belonging to Royal Dutch Shell last Thursday as the group stepped up a campaign against foreign oil companies in the country. The Anglo-Dutch oil giant had confirmed the attack saying, “Shell can confirm that the Trans Ramos pipeline at Aghoro -2 community in Bayelsa State was attacked on last night (June 17),” the company spokesman, Precious Okolobo said.
“Some oil production has been shut in to avoid potential environmental impact,” he said, refusing to disclose the volume of output loss. “The relevant government agencies have been informed and a joint investigation visit is planned,” he added. The pipeline feeds Shell’s Forcados exports terminal, which the company said earlier would not resume operations for another two months due to delays in repairing another key pipeline damaged by militants. Reports indicated that some 185,000 barrels per day of crude had been shut in as a result of the attack on Shell.
Also the United States firm, Chevron had confirmed twin attacks on two oil and gas pipelines on a week ago, a day after MEND claimed responsibility for the attack. “Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL), operator of the NNPC/CNL Joint Venture, confirms that there was a breach on the Makaraba-Utonana-Abiteye pipeline and fire at its Makaraba Jacket 5 facility in Delta State that occurred on Friday June 12, 2009,” a statement said.
“Our workforce is safe, relevant stakeholders have been informed and we are continuing to assess the situation and work to restore the integrity of the facility which had been shut down before the incident.” The militants also warned that its fighters were heading to the Chevron tank farm in Escravos and urged staff to flee. Only last month, the group knocked out a Chevron pipeline, forcing a 100,000 barrel-per-day oil output cut, over one quarter of the company’s Nigerian production.
Also, the militants were linked with an aircraft intercepted by security agencies laden with weapons and ammunitions at the Malam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA), Kano last week. There were palpable fears last week over that development, which nearly lend substantial credence to the militants’ threat of launching attacks in the North.
Reacting to why they were expanding the scope of their attack to the North and northerners; the spokesperson of MEND Jomo Gbomo told Sunday Trust in an online interview that they “did not hate northerners in general. Many of us have good friends who are northerners.”
Gbomo explained that “but due to the fact that the elite are taking us for fool and the majority of soldiers committing atrocities against us are from the North, the time has come when brothers have to go to war. In the end, there will be mutual respect and true federalism which will be mutually beneficial to all of us.”
The group said that “we want to use this opportunity to ask members of the public around the Bonny and Port Harcourt axis to watch the video of the extra-judicial killing by the JTF of one Boma and his brother on You Tube to help trace the family and friends to reveal the perpetrators of the criminal act, who the JTF are covering.
“If soldiers, who are supposed to protect civilians, (do) harass, rape and kill them; then they should be exposed. We know that the military still has a few God-fearing men who may recall the incident when the men were shot on a jetty where the JTF gunboats are docked. Please come forward and expose the killers among you,” Gbomo urged.
The police authorities, according to its Force Public Relations Officer, Assistant Commissioner of Police Emmanuel Ojukwu, is not unmindful of what MEND is doing. It described the group as a terrorist organisation. He said the police would confront all aspects threatening the stability and the peaceful coexistence of the country. “Nigerians should not panic, rather they should go about their businesses in all parts of the country. The police have the wherewithal of addressing all forms of the threats to life and property,” the image maker said.
States command of the force are also not taking any chances as regarding the recent threat. The Public Relations Officer, Federal Capital Territory Police Command, Deputy Superintendent of Police (PPRO) Moshood Jimoh, said the police have since been monitoring the activities of MEND with a view to ensuring that they did not infiltrate the FCT and the North.
The police spokesman said the recent threat by the organisation has made the police to tighten security within the Federal Capital Territory. He said the FCT’s police command has instructed all the area commanders and senior police officers to be vigilant not to allow the militants to launch attack in Abuja. He urged people to report suspected people living around them.
His Niger State counterpart, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Richard Oguche said that the force has since intensified efforts in tracking down the activities of the militant group. “Police are ready for the militants. We would clamp down on them as soon as they make any effort to actualise their threat,” he said.Cont’d from page 6
Also, the JTF has reacted to the threat issued by the MEND, saying that it was mandated as a professional body to maintain the security of lives and property of all people residing in the troubled region. The JTF spokesman, Colonel Rabe Abubakar told Sunday Trust that they would not allow anything or anybody to distract them on their mission of achieving this feat. He reiterated that “the troops serving in the JTF are drawn from different religious and ethnic groups across the country, Abuja inclusive. Recruitment or enlistment into the army, as the case may be, is based on character irrespective of religion or tribe”.
He added that it would be laughable for anybody or group to say that soldiers serving in JTF are exclusively northerners, stressing “this goes a long way to prove that such individual or group are ignorant. It is quite unfortunate that in this millennium any individual or group would talk with no sense of direction or decorum”.
Abubakar said that JTF is one big family devoid of ethnic, religious and personal sentiment fused together as one. “We are our brothers’ keepers and not vulnerable to anybody or group; ours is to discharge our duties judiciously, honestly and professionally for our great country and Niger Delta in particular. Therefore, if MEND has run out of ideas, they should dare not dabble into affairs they know nothing about”.
He said the JTF is ready to crush any threat emanating from any group anywhere in the region. “The members of the Nigerian Armed Forces serving in the JTF are capable of employing all manoeuvres to suppress any unholy group or individual for the good of our people and great country Nigeria. We are professionals, it is not magic, but a simple logic,” JTF spokesman said.
President Umaru Musa Yar’adua has so far remained silent on this development, even as he promised to unveil the details of an amnesty package for militants soon, as part of efforts to end the unrest and save Nigeria’s multi-billion-dollar oil and gas industry. Nigeria’s daily oil production currently stands at 1.8 million barrels, according to the latest report of June by the International Energy Agency (IEA), lower than the 2.6 million barrels of 2006.
The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) also said that the amnesty announced by President Yar’adua does not mean that the military should lower its guard on its assigned duties of securing the nation’s “vital national interest,” saying they “should be guarded all the time. The amnesty is for the militants to take advantage of by the time it is put on the table.”
The former Director, Defence Headquarters (DDI), Col. Chris Jemitola, said this during his valedictory press briefing in Abuja, while handing over to his successor, Col. Mohammed Yerima. Jemitola said that there was no cause for alarm over the impounded aircraft in Kano as investigations were still on.
Analysts have expressed fears over the new dimension the Niger Delta unrest is taking. It would be recalled that the United States National Intelligence Council had predicted the “outright collapse of Nigeria” in its report released in March 2005 on or before 2015. The report said that “there are possibilities that could disrupt the precarious equilibrium in Abuja. The most important would be a junior officer coup that could destabilize the country to the extent that open warfare breaks out in many places in a sustained manner.”
With this development, analysts opined that the government at all levels may not likely contain the recent threats, which is likely to snowball into a national crisis that could jeopardize, not only the country’s economic interests, but its corporate existence, reminiscent of the Biafran war.