The Joint Revolutionary Council, an umbrella platform for militants in the Niger Delta has declared this month as black November when they would attack all oil installations in the region within 72 hours.
A statement to this effect, which was received online and signed by spokesperson of the Council, Cynthia Whyte warned that the group would be brutal in the operation, which would ensure that it hits hard at targets already chosen.
The Joint Revolutionary Council (comprising the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, The Reformed Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force and The Martyrs Brigade) warned that it would be be �swift, firm and painstakingly decisive. We shall be hard-hitting, vengeance seeking and pain inflicting. The time for some measure of just recompense has come.�
To this end, the militants ordered all those it described as �oil operating companies, service companies and imperialist collaborators of the Nigerian state� to discontinue operations in the Niger delta and vacate in the next 72 hours.
The militants threatened that �any operations, personnel, facilities & infrastructure (moving or stationary) will be considered an enemy and taken out. We shall hit those that come after us and those that go before us.
�At this point in time, mercy is not a virtue that we can hold any claim to,� they warned.
In an apparent response to the threat, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) in a statement also sent online by its leader, Gbomo Jomo dissociated itself from the planned strike.
Jomo denied knowledge of the existence of the Joint Revolutionary Council, which he said lacks the capacity to speak for the militants in the region, adding that their aim of emancipating the Niger Delta was different from threats of attacks.
They further stated that the release of Alhaji Dokubo Asari and former Governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamiyeseigha were still immutable on their agenda and achievable soon.
we wish to refute claims of any kind of relationship between us and a group claiming to be the joint revolutionary council. We do not know these individuals, have never heard of them and have no collaboration with this group if it indeed exists. The movement for the emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) has as its objective the liberation of the Niger Delta from the clutches of the oil companies and Nigerian government. We are fighting for justice for the entire population of the Niger Delta and not specifically for the release of any indigene of the Niger delta incarcerated by the Nigerian government.
Every indigene of the Niger Delta in the custody of the Nigerian government, who has fought for the rights of the indigenes of the Delta, is of equal value to us. Notable amongst such are Alamieseigha and Asari. It should however be clearly noted that the fight is not about these two individuals and has never been so, MEND said.
However, the Joint Revolutionary Council said they were irked by the insults President Olusegun Obasanjo pou-red on their leaders like late Isaac Adaka Boro while at the same time challenging the powers of the gods of their land which they considered unpardonable and want to rise to the challenge.
According to them, the restiveness in the Niger Delta arose from the pillaging and looting of the country and its treasury by past military Heads of States which includes the President who they also claimed that were it not for their dogged fight against late General Sani Abacha, he would have been killed in the gallows.
Both groups however agreed that fighting for the release of the duo of Alameiyesegha and Dokubo did not translate to the only agenda of the Niger Delta but was part of it which must be realized.
Nov42006