COMMANDER of the military Joint Task Force (JTF), in-charge of Delta and Bayelsa states, Brigadier-General Nanven Wuyep Rimtip, says the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) has been hijacked by hostage takers, armed robbers and other criminals, but, the militant group replied him, saying, it is a lie.
Brigadier-General Rimtip who was reacting to the threat by the MEND that it would join hands with some militants in Delta state to fight the task force because of the siege on oil thieves said, “I will not be surprised if the criminals that have hijacked MEND want to support oil thieves in Delta State in the name of Niger-Delta struggle”.
He spoke in an exclusive interview with Sunday Vanguard in Warri but the MEND in a counter reaction said the commander does not know anything about the real MEND struggle and should, therefore, mind his comments. According to Brigadier-general Rimtip, “There is real MEND and the fake one.
The real MEND is for development while the fake MEND is perpetuating evil. The faction of MEND that wants development has laid down arms and its members are agitating for development of the region, but it is unfortunate that the criminal MEND has overshadowed the genuine MEND.”
He, however, said that even if the fake MEND amass the whole arms and ammunition in the world, criminality would stop one day in the region because it was retarding and not bringing development to the people. Brigadier-General Rimtip said, “It is one the genuine ones among them that have reasoned and understood that blowing up oil installations, kidnapping people and oil bunkering would not solve the problem of the Niger-Delta and we know them when we see them.”
Rimtip maintained that the JTF would continue its siege on the oil thieves in his Area of Responsibility (AOR), adding,“It is illegal, it is ruining our economy and I will not allow it to thrive here. Anybody involved in it and I have challenged them before, they should expose any military man involved in the business with them because I have not sent anybody to protect them and I will not protect any criminal.”
Guerilla warfare
MEND’s spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, in response to inquiry by Sunday Vanguard said, “The JTF commander knows nothing about the real MEND struggle? MEND objective from conception has been to wage an armed struggle against the government to force development of the region, respect the environment, train youths on weapons handling and guerrilla warfare and also push for true federalism.” “Criminals”, he posited, “could not have hijacked something they had been doing long before JTF and MEND came into existence.
“The general, like his officers and men are engaged in big and petty crimes. They are in the region to make money from engaging in debt collection for a fee to oil bunkering and armed robbery”, he alleged. The MEND spokesman added: “The recent arrest of a ship involved in oil theft was purely because of the disagreement between the Navy and the JTF in the sharing of settlement fees.”
Investigations by Sunday Vanguard, however, showed that Brigadier-General Rimtip was not in the know of the underhand arrangement between some JTF men and the oil thieves that hired a foreign vessel, MT Akuada to steal 22,000 metres of crude oil in November.
He ordered the detention of the ship and arrest of the 22 crew members when information got to him about the deal, which went sour following a disagreement between some soldiers and naval members of the task force on the sharing formula. The oil thieves who were angry that their crude oil was seized after settling their accomplices in the JTF hijacked a ship that was conveying equipment to Warri Ports for the Escravos Gas-to-Liquid project, thinking that it would make the commander to release their ship, but there was no dice, as Brigadier-General Rimtip ordered a tight security around the ship and the arrested persons.
Investigation into the scandal was still going on, though, there was a new twist recently, when a militant group claimed that the JTF had released eight of 22 Filipinos that were arrested over the affair. Also, it was speculated that the MT Akuada crew members were hijacked by militants for an illegal business when it was waiting at the anchorage at Escravos Bar by some group of armed men, numbering about 11 and dressed in naval and army uniforms.
Master of the Panamanian Flag Vessel, Captain Albo Simeon in a statement, made available to Sunday Vanguard said the ship had already been cleared to load fuel oil from Warri Refinery for those that chartered it when the crew members were taken hostage by suspected militants, who diverted them to Benneth Island.
His words: “To our surprise, they gained entry into the channel and when accosted by a naval gunboat at Chevron Point, two of the militants (their leader plus another) came and spoke to the commander in charge of the gunboat. It seemed they knew each other so the gunboat allowed the vessel to proceed. After that encounter with the gunboat, the militants quickly changed their uniforms and remained in coloured clothes and warned us that we were being hijacked to go and load crude oil but nothing will happen to the crew if we were being good boys.”
Captain Simeon shed light on the collaboration of some soldiers and naval men with the oil thieves when he said, “The following morning, Thursday, November 13, 2008 at about 0900 hours, three men came onboard, and as I heard, they said to the militants that the JTF commander had approved the operation and that the naval commander wants his money before the operation, otherwise, he would not give the go-ahead. He had been collecting big monies from other vessels on the other routes and that he wants his money upfront”.
He stated that after one of the men spoke on phone with somebody he suspected to be a security personnel, the three men disembarked from the vessel and he was forced to sail to a point where about 70 militants, armed with AK 47 rifles came to join them, adding that the militants forcefully loaded crude oil from their barges, numbering about 21 to his vessel under tight security and that they were escorted outwards by Navy Boat A503.
According to him, the navy boat later came and took him, the chief engineer and chief officer to the Naval Base where he was forced to sign a hand-written document, saying that they came to Escravos following the instructions of the operators of the vessel and not from the militants.
The captain said that after signing the statement, they were taken back to the vessel and the militants took him and four crew members away to their camp leaving other members of the crew in the vessel. On November 15, the military attacked the vessel and the 15 crew members that were onboard were arrested. He said they were held in the militant camp until Tuesday, November 18; three days after the JTF impounded the ship and arrested the crew.
Speaking in an earlier interview with Sunday Vanguard, Brigadier-General Rimtip disclosed that those who applied to the task force to bring the ship into the country said the ship was coming into the country empty for repairs and would go back empty after the repairs. The task force went after the Nigerians that applied for the ship to enter the country after the arrest of the ship only to find out that the Lagos address they gave was not genuine and the company used was nonexistent.
Independent investigation by Sunday Vanguard showed that a Nigerian company entered into an agreement with the owners of foreign ship to load fuel oil at the Warri Refinery, but, in the application to the JTF to allow the ship entry, they said the ship was coming for repairs and would go back after repairs empty. The story now is that the crew members, all Filipinos were hijacked by militants and used for an illegal business, but, the coordinator of the Joint Media Campaign of the JTF, Lieutenant Colonel Abubakar said, “It is a cock and bull story”.