TWENTY-FOUR days after President’s Umaru Yar’Adua was admitted to the King Faisal Intensive Care and Research Centre, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta has warned that the prevailing ceasefire in the region was being threatened by his indisposition.
The main militant group, in a tacit reaction to calls for the President to resign due to ill-health, said Yar’Adua was not indispensable.
MEND said the vacuum created by the absence of Yar’Adua signalled the lack of continuity in governance.
The group’s spokesman, Mr. Jomo Gbomo, declared MEND’s position in an online interview with our correspondent on Wednesday.
Gbomo, who likened Nigeria to a ship without a captain, said stagnation in the search for peace and development in the Niger Delta due to Yar’Adua’s indisposition, could jeopardise the fragile peace in the Niger Delta.
“As much as we sympathise with him and pray for his speedy recovery, the lack of continuity may jeopardise the gains of our current ceasefire.”
“We are in support of a system that ensures continuity and affirms that nobody is indispensable. The country is like a ship without a captain and a broken rudder. The post-amnesty like many programmes in the country has become stagnant.”
According to Gbomo, “The MEND Aaron Team has only had an exploratory meeting with the government, which agreed on the need for further expanded meetings to address some of MEND’s demands and to address the region’s root issues.”
The group said that for the country to move forward, there must be a sense of continuity in governance, “regardless of who is in charge and who is a subordinate.”
To this end, the group expressed dissatisfaction over the implementation of the post-amnesty programme of the Federal Government in the Niger Delta, adding, “There is nothing dynamic to cheer about. The White Paper of the Niger Delta Technical Committee (headed by Mr. Ledum Mittee) will be a clear sign of a clearer road map in that direction.”
The group praised the Federal Governemnt for dissolving the Presidential Committee on Amnesty and Disarmament for Militants in the Niger Delta headed by the Minister of Defence, Maj.-Gen. Godwin Abbe (rtd), saying it was “good riddance to bad rubbish.” However, the group said it was not not interested in being represented in the five new panels raised in place of the Abbe-led committee.