Niger Delta militants threaten to blow up refineries

- A militant group has vowed to destroy refineries within 48 hours

- The group urged all workers in the Niger Delta region to vacate

- It accused the federal government of only negotiating with Ijaw militants

A militants group, Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate has issued a deadly warning to the president Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government that in a few days, refineries in the region will be destroyed.

The region has been a hub of activities by militants who have vandalised oil and gas pipelines.

Vanguard reports that the group threatened to blow up refineries in the region because it noticed that the federal government was negotiating with Ijaw terrorists and ignoring others.

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In a statement signed by Gen. Aldo Agbalaja who is the spokesperson of the group, he urged oil workers in the region to evacuate as the level of violence it will commit in the coming days will be enormous.

Read the full statement below:

“We have keenly watched developments in the country in recent times, developments that are most depressing, very much depicting the marginalization and subjugation of the hapless people of our region.

“We have thought very deeply about the ongoing shenanigan and play-acting going on between the federal government and some self-styled ‘Niger Delta agitators’ and thought if we fail to make our own statement now, then there will be no future for the larger Niger Delta region”.

Continuing in the statement, he said; “for the avoidance of doubts, the Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate is not in the mold of the various criminal gangs that have so far paraded themselves as fighting for the interest of the people of the Niger Delta, but who indeed have been engaged in fight for personal enrichment.

“We are not one of them. We are out to tell the world that there is a Niger Delta that is made up of many tribes and tongues, the people of whom have so far suffered both local and national oppression.

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“We have come at this point to ensure that our oppressors, being the federal government, the state governments in the six core Niger Delta states who have received billions of dollars over the past years but have brought little or no development to the region and the so-called super-ethnic nations, who have yielded to greed and wickedness and have exposed the rest of us in the oil-rich, but deeply impoverished region, to crippling squalor”.

“Federal government and the oil multinational companies have been making a very grave mistake by equating the interest of the Ijaw people as that of all the tribes of the region. Indeed, this is a mistake that is about to take a more devastating toll than has ever been seen or experienced in the history of Nigeria.

“Any moment from now, we shall be making a loud statement which we believe should be loud enough for all to see and take seriously and then afterwards state our demands.

“We have considered this ‘coming statement’ reluctantly inevitable because of the recalcitrance of federal authorities, as well as oil giants; they both have decided to ignore calls to reason and have made violence the only option.

“Just as in the 2009 experience, the federal government and oil companies have started yet another round of negotiation with the Ijaw front, in the name of all the people of the Niger Delta. This will not work. Since they do not regard the assets in our areas important enough to be protected, we shall root them all out of the length of the Niger Delta. We don’t want to make this mistake any longer, violence pays as it has become the only voice that government gives hearkens to.

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“Finally, we are asking all the oil multinationals still in the upland of our region; AGIP, TOTAL, SHELL, MOBIL, SHORELINES, NECONDE, E.D WESTERN, SEPLAT and others to commence the evacuation of their personnel from the region, especially in the Ogba/Egi axis of Rivers state, Urhobo/Isoko/Ndokwa axis of Delta state and other upland oil producing areas, within the next 48 hours.

“We also want to bring it to the attention of the federal government and the NNPC that the refineries in Warri (Urhobo land) and Port Harcourt (Eleme) and the gas plant in Otorogun will all come down in few days from now.

“We just hope that the Nigerian government will continue ignoring us so that we can perfect what those in the riverine area started”.

Source: Legit.ng