MILITANTS in the Niger Delta are staying action on taking foreign oil workers hostage henceforth. Rather, they have decided to go after those they call their real enemies.
Spokesperson for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Cynthia White, in a statement posted on the internet described the foreigners as innocent workers.
The group said it had devised a new strategy to abduct only the �real enemies� of the Niger Delta, while also stepping up attacks on oil facilities in the region. Her words: �Innocent workers of oil service companies will no longer be taken hostage. The real enemies of our people will be taken on in future. That is the new way of working. We will, however, continue to sabotage facilities as we deem fit. Dubious politicians need to have a taste of the action.�
In a separate statement, the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Front (NDPVF) dismissed a newspaper advertorial which listed its detained leader Asari Dokubo as one of those armed by politicians in the region as a gross distortion of truth. It said Asari had never been a tool in the hands of any politicians.
�Our esteemed and patriotic leader, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari has never been a member of the ruling People�s Democratic Party (PDP). He was a founding member of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and later joined the National Conscience Party (NCP) in 2002.
�He has been a freedom fighter even from his days at the University of Calabar as a student unionist. He is a prince of Kalabari Kingdom from the lineage of the great warrior, King Amachree I, founder of Kalabari Kingdom.
�His father was a highly placed High Court Judge when Alhaji Dokubo-Asari was growing up in the best part of Port Harcourt along with children of personalities like Jeremiah Useni, Zamani Lekwot, governors, commissioners, judges and wealthy businessmen.
�He is from a higher intellectual, ideological and social background than Dr. Peter Odili. His relationship with Dr. Peter Odili and other ruling party politicians was in his capacity as the independent President of Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) world-wide and not a boy-master or thug-politician type and it will be fool-hardy to believe so.
�Fully aware of his proud background, he cannot stoop so low as to allow himself to be used as a thug or to betray the people he loves so much.”