SECURITY agencies’ repeated pronouncements that foreign mercenaries were operating in the Niger Delta have been corroborated by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).
The militant group said that the mercenaries were training youths in several camps in the region.
In an Internet interview with The Guardian, MEND’s spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, said that there were indeed seasoned instructors and mercenaries with experience in the Vietnam and Gulf Wars in the region. He said: “This is a clear indication that the militants do not take the threat of the government lightly.”
The group however condemned the government’s decision to allow oil and gas producing companies in the region to flare the commodity beyond the January 1, 2008 deadline.
Security agents in the country recently restated their stand that mercenaries had been spotted in the Niger Delta and that they were in camps training militants.
But MEND has warned against further militarisation of the oil-producing region, threatening that any day the military starts a major incursion into the creeks, the Lagos 3rd Mainland Bridge and other national structures would be its targets.
“In 2008, like I said earlier, we have a secret plan that makes even me to shudder. The government is going to spend huge sum in its so-called security for the region, so we must be equal to the task. All I can say is that at the time of our choosing, we plan to halt oil exports in one swipe (sic).
“We have suddenly realised that the militarisation is a blessing in disguise. We now see it as strength to our advantage. They are merely assisting us to deliver the same arms and ammunition that will be used against them when the right time comes,” he said.
Gbomo noted that Nigerians from other regions were not prepared to solve the Niger Delta problem because they refused to develop their resources and allow each region to control same.
MEND said though it has no plan to attack oil installations based on the failure of the government to enforce its earlier directive, it still plans to halt oil exports when the need arises.
Gbomo said: “We did not expect the government to be firm on the gas flaring matter; the same way they have been indifferent to oil spills and the general destruction of marine and the ecosystem of the region. No, we will not attack because of the gas flaring issue.”
MEND noted that the reason why militants backed out of the presidential peace committee headed by Senator David Brigidi was because it was not founded on sincerity in the first place. Second, the root causes of the problems of the Niger Delta were not being addressed.
On the fate of one of its key leaders, Henry Okah, who was arrested last September in Angola for alleged gun-running, MEND said the Angolan government does not have any evidence that links him to the charges of arms sale and money laundering.
Gbomo said: “They must have proof to continue to hold him under a criminal investigation, moreso considering that the mandatory 105 days to hold a person without bail have elapsed under the Angolan law. We do not know his condition because even his family has been denied access to him. We know what to do at the appropriate time. 2008 is going to be decisive.”
He said the group is going to adopt a different approach to issues that are important to the Niger Delta but obviously not taken seriously by the government.