The main militant group in Nigeria`s oil- producing Niger Delta region has scoffed at President Olusegun Obasanjo`s crackdown order on those involved in hostage taking and other criminal activities in the region.
“Whatever directive he (Obasanjo) is giving (is) intended to calm the nerves of the oil industry workers,” said the spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Jomo Gbomo.
“Believe him when he is able to achieve this feat,” he said in an e-mail message to PANA in Lagos Friday.
On Tuesday, Obasanjo ordered the country`s armed forces and the police to meet criminal elements in the Niger Delta “force for force”, and warned that no government official, oil company or oil service company should pay any form of ransom to hostage takers or criminal gangs.
“We are going to be firm and say no to violence and hostage- taking. Wherever we find hostage-takers now, we will hunt them down. We will not accept this any longer,” the Nigerian leader said.
“Nigeria is a signatory to international conventions which categorise hostage takers and their accomplices in non- international conflict situations as terrorists to be hunted down wherever they go,” he added.
The government`s tough action came after a rising wave of abduction of foreign oil workers in the oil-producing region.
Gunmen in the oil region have carried out six different abductions involving over 15 foreign oil workers in the past two weeks.
MEND launched the current wave of hostage taking, as well as attacks on oil facilities, early this year as part of efforts to get a better deal for the impoverished Niger Delta residents from oil companies operating in the area.
Attacks by MEND and other emerging militant groups have cut Nigeria`s daily production of 2.5 million barrels per day by 25 percent.