THE militant group everyone awaits its position on issues in the Niger Delta has denied it authorised a statement declaring a three-month ceasefire of hostilities in the region.
In a statement sent from its usual e-mail address to local and foreign media houses signed by “Jomo Gbomo”, the group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), said the report in a national daily yesterday was false.
The daily (not The Guardian) had reported that the coalition of militant groups under the aegis of MEND was ready to lay down its arms to give the Federal Government-backed Council for Niger Delta Development (CNDD) a chance to work for the development of the region.
The report allegedly signed by the Vice Chairman of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), one of the “affiliate groups” to the MEND, David Reje, said that the decision to suspend action for three months had been communicated to the state government and that leaders of MEND would be meeting with the state government officials today.
Reje said that the decision of MEND to suspend hostilities for three months was not out of fear or cowardice but a demonstration of the group’s resolve to make things better for the region and its people.
But in the e-mail from the MEND yesterday, it refuted the report.
The militants, who vowed last month to take their campaigns from the creeks to the upland of the country so that all Nigerians would feel the deprivation of the people of the Niger Delta, said: “This is a crude attempt by the Nigerian government to mislead the media and confuse oil and international business community.
“The leadership of MEND is unknown to the Nigerian government and as we have maintained, the Nigerian government has been negotiating with fraudsters. We have warned oil industry workers sufficiently and will waste no more time repeating ourselves.”
The group repeated its claim that it was out for “the total destruction of the capacity of the Nigerian government to export crude oil it steals from the Niger Delta”. The MEND said it was rather unfortunate that the newspaper permitted itself to be used for “the propagation of such trash.” “We will respond to this with a series of attacks against oil industry targets and individuals very shortly”, the group said.
From blowing up oil pipelines and platforms early in their campaign from mid-December till early in January when it started taking foreign oil workers hostage, MEND has moved on to planting bombs and explosives in cars it detonates in select areas.
At least it claimed responsibility for the two car explosions in a military barracks in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and among parked fuel tankers in Warri, Delta State on April 19 and 29. Its campaigns have caused a cutback of about 25 per cent of Nigeria’s daily crude oil production.
The amorphous group has consistently said it did not approve of the negotiations its Ijaw leaders and other militant groups have been holding with the government on the Niger Delta issues.
The MEND said its minimum demands are the release of Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari who is facing treason charges in Abuja and Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the impeached Bayelsa State governor, facing money laundering charges in Lagos; resource control for the people of the Niger Delta and payment of $1.5 billion by Shell Petroleum Development Company to Ijaw of Bayelsa State for environmental degradation.
May92006