The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, says it has been vindicated by the Reformed Niger Delta Avengers’ allegation that former President Goodluck Jonathan is a grand patron of new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers.
MEND claimed in a statement signed by the infamous Jomo Gbomo on Tuesday, August 9, 2016, that Jonathan was sponsoring the Niger Delta to destabilise the government of his successor, Muhammadu Buhari.
MEND said it was highly irked by Jonathan’s rebuttal of the Revolutionary Niger Delta Avengers earlier claim, particularly his declaration that Henry Okah was after his life rather than clear the air on the allegation.
“MEND cannot hold brief for the RNDA, which pointedly accused Mr. Jonathan of complicity in fueling the ongoing Niger Delta crisis and patronising the NDA, apparently for political reasons,” the statement said.
“We are, however, quick to point out the fact that the RNDA has merely vindicated MEND’s belief and conviction that the former President and his cronies, who lost the 2015 presidential election, were using the illegal and treasonable NDA platform to destabilise President Buhari’s government.”
The group further accused Jonathan of wasting the opportunity of the South-South to rule the country, accusing him of failing to develop the region when he was in the saddle as President.
“Indeed, the problem in the Niger Delta today has nothing to do with the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. Far from it! The problem is simply the failure of Mr. Jonathan to address the root issues confronting the region when he was at the helms of affairs.
”Even though he was from the impoverished region and had, by his own admission in numerous electioneering campaigns, experienced the utter poverty and abject neglect of the region foisted by successive Nigerian governments and the international oil companies since the discovery of oil in 1958 at Oloibiri (a few metres away from his native Otuoke) in Bayelsa State, Mr. Jonathan disappointingly frittered away the opportunity to rescue his people when the Nigerian Presidency fortuitously landed on his laps, virtually on a platter of gold.
“For six whole years, Mr. Jonathan was busy drinking, making merry and generally chasing shadows at the State House. Such a fellow deserves to be ostracised from the assembly of reasonable men; because the Nigerian Presidency might never come back to the Niger Delta region as cheap as it came to Mr. Jonathan; perhaps, in the next 100 years.
“Lest we forget, MEND was at the forefront of the armed struggle back in 2006/2007 which forced the then Government of President Olusegun Obasanjo to consider the option of drafting an Ijaw into the mainstream of Nigerian politics. That was how the perpetually timid and naïve Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan became Vice-President and later, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. When he assumed the reins as President, he did the unthinkable; he tracked down perceived MEND leaders and promptly got them imprisoned on a trumped-up charge of attempt to assassinate him.
“Up until today, Mr. Jonathan is still suffering from an assassination paranoia complex.”
The group asserted that a substantial portion of Jonathan’s statement, “unfortunately, dwelt on judicial matters which are pending in various courts in Nigeria and South Africa.”
Who Are The Niger Delta Avengers?
Niger Delta Avengers is a new militancy group that is operating in the oil-rich region of Southern Nigeria. In the second quarter of 2016, the group emerged as the leading militant group mounting attacks on crude oil and gas installations in the troubled region.
The militant group say it is waging a war for a free Niger Delta Republic in what it tags, Operation Red Economy, with a view of halting crude oil production in Nigeria to force the government to grant the group’s demands.
The Avengers claims it has reduced oil production in the country to less than one million barrels a day. An analyst at VOA News corroborates the militants’ claims saying that oil production has dropped below one million barrels a day due to the waves of attacks on pipelines and oil installations.
The militant group has released its rules of engagement and says that it doesn’t kill anybody or attack oil workers or soldiers. The Delta Avengers called on all other groups operating in the region to abide by these rules of engagement. “We need God now, more than ever,” the group said in a statement.
The Niger Delta Avengers has presented an 11-point demand to President Muhammadu Buhari and the first is the implementation of the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference. [Download Conference report HERE.]
President Muhammadu Buhari recently rejected the Avengers’ demands saying that the unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable. The president’s first reaction to the Avengers was to declare war against them. He later promised to “crush them” as he did Boko Haram. That position has shifted to begging them in the ‘name of Almighty God’ to stop the attacks.
Pro-Biafra secessionist group, Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, has pledged “total allegiance” to the Niger Delta Avengers extolling the militant group for supporting the cause of a free Biafra. MASSOB embraces the tenets of nonviolence. It is led by Ralph Uwazuruike, a lawyer.
In June, 2016 the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, another secessionist group pledged its support for the Niger Delta Avengers, saying the groups’ ideal of freedom align.
The MEND Factor
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, is believed to be a defunct guerrilla militant group and one of the largest of the groups which waged a campaign against oil production in the Niger Delta region that successfully crippled the nation’s economy from 2005 till 2009.
Some of the leaders of MEND were Henry Okah, who is currently serving a 24-year jail term for the October 1, 2010 bombing in Abuja; Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo who is in a running battle with the Buhari government and has called on the Avengers to embrace dialogue with the federal government; Ateke Tom, whose Niger Delta Vigilante merged with MEND; and Ebikabowei Victor Ben, also known as Boyloaf who recently named Tompolo as the sponsor of the Niger Delta Avengers.
At the height of the war, the late President Musa Yar’Adua declared Tompolo as the most wanted man in Nigeria. The Niger Delta restiveness only ended when the late President Musa Yar’Adua successfully negotiated a cease-fire and launched the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme in 2009.
Leaders of MEND took the presidential amnesty and ended the conflict.
