Avengers’ renewed threats and its implications

P precisely on November 3, 2017, militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), issued a statement on its website with a stern threat to resume what it termed “Operation Red Economy,” it had suspended a year before, after pleas from leaders and elders of the region.

They averred, in the piece that the Federal Government was hoodwinking the region by not addressing pressing issues submitted to it by members of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) led by elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark on November 1, 2016.

Top on their grouses, beside fiscal federalism and resource control, was the embattled Nigerian Maritime University (NMU) which opening and resumption of academic slated for October, 2017, were being delayed obviously by the Federal Government’s refusal to disburse funds for the take-off.

With much outrage from stakeholders across the country against the Federal Government’s amid rising crude oil export proceeds, a total of about N6 billion was swiftly disbursed for the take-off of the university and this, expectedly, calmed frayed nerves albeit momentarily.

But the high hanging fruits such as relocation of headquarters of international oil companies (IOCs) to the Niger Delta region as ordered by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, withdrawal of troops from the Niger Delta, establishment of modular refineries, fiscal federalism and resource control among others remain evasive for the FG to bring about.

Then came January 17, 2018, about 10 weeks after the threat and shelving of Operation Red Economy, members of the separatist group published a New Year message with fresh threats to attack very critical oil and gas assets on and offshore of the region.

This, unfortunately, is coming at a time bloodshed of innocent souls has taken a centre stage in Benue, Taraba, Adamawa and other parts of the country by marauding Fulani herdsmen whose fear has become the beginning of wisdom.

Describing 2018 as a doomed year for the country and asking the Federal Government’s to brace up, the militants threatened to carry out a deadly round of attacks on deep sea operations of the multinationals which include Bonga Platform, Agbami, EA Field, Britania-U Field, Akpo Field, among others located across the deep waters of the Niger Delta region.

“As for the Egina FPSO, we are advising the operators to let it stay wherever it is right now as we are tracking it’s movement.

“We mean it when we say they (the oil installations) shall dance to the sound of the fury of the Niger Delta Avengers.

“Good a thing the ocean is wide enough to accommodate as many wreck as possible,” the Avengers in the publication signed by its spokesperson, ‘Major General’ Murdoch Agbinibo.

The group, therefore, vowed never to listen to pleas from the elders again as it plans to resume lethal attacks, in few days, against critical assets in the region.

The group warned that anybody against the call for restructuring of the country to enable each region to control its resources was a marked enemy of the NDA and should be ready for a showdown.

The Avengers accused the Nigerian Army of being unprofessional and double-dealing by releasing 244 members of the Boko Haram sect to Bornu State government while scores of Niger Delta youths are languishing in various prisons across the country for no just course.

The militants, therefore, called on the Nigerian Army to, with immediate effect, activate the unconditional release of the prisoners of war of Niger Delta origin in its custody.

They also chided the Nigerian troops in the Niger Delta for deceiving Karowei with pecks of amnesty offer to surrender, only for them to arrest and kill him and other 19 suspects last Thursday.

The group, taking a cue from the Karowei saga, warned other freedom fighters in the region to learn from the fall of Karowei and be resolute to fight to the finish line anytime they found themselves in gun battle with troops since the current Federal Government and its army thrived on deceit and could no longer be trusted.

“On the 15th of January 2018, being the 62nd historic remembrance day of the 1956 discovery of commercial oil by Shell Darcy in the now forgotten and dejected Oloibiri community in the Niger Delta, the high command of the Niger Delta Avengers summoned a meeting of all our operatives from across the Niger Delta to review the progress of our operations so far and deliberate on the planned actions for the future.

“It was agreed in that meeting that the killings and division presently playing out in Nigeria along divergent grounds make this the perfect time to restructure this country,” the Avengers conjectured.

They vowed to “shake the coffers of the failed Nigerian nation,” reiterating that “our demand unambiguously is for the government to “Restructure this country.”

Implications of resumed hostility

No doubt, with a barrel of crude oil reportedly going for about $70 at the international market and the sustained rise in the output of crude oil exportation, the current booming oil economy could suffer a serious setback and depletion if the dreadful Avengers make good their threats given their antecedents.

Parts of the aftereffects will also include breakdown of security in the region, further militaralisation of the region.

To this end, groups, leaders and elders in the region have, again, risen up to lend their supports or reprimand the NDA for the fresh threats.

The umbrella body of all Ijaw youths, the Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC), through its president, Pereotubo Oweilaemi, Esq., called for restraint, but said the NDA’s threat to resume hostility was justifiable.

In a reaction forwarded to the Nigerian Tribune late Wednesday, Oweilaemi said ‘the Federal Government’s cynical attitudes towards the plight of the people” in the region was one of the reasons.

He warned that unless effects of attacks from the lethal militants would be too much to bear unless the FG restructured the country, begins the execution of the 16-point demands presented by PANDEF on behalf of the region as well as commence the actual take-off of the maritime university by calling the Attorney-General of Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN to resolve the Okerenkoko to Okerenghigho debacle.

While insinuating that the FG was on its own this time around, the IYC enthused with regret that PANDEF and other notable elders of the region might be unable to pacify the aggrieved and rampaging militants when they struck.

In the same vein, a Niger Delta activist and community leader from Gbaramatu  Kingdom, Comrade Sheriff Mulade, has appealed to members of the dreaded Niger Delta Avengers not to carry out their planned attacks, saying they should keep their powder dry.

He disclosed that the Egina Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO), which departed South Korean shipbuilder, Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) on a journey to Nigeria on Wednesday, October 3, 2017, according to reports, was expected to be deployed in the second half of 2018, after the remaining topside module integration and commissioning is completed.

The FPSO has been named as one of its prime target for attacks by the militant group in few days when it arrives the shores of the Niger Delta.

Mulade pleaded with the Avengers not to carry out the deadly attack, saying it would only aggravate the pains of the people of the region.

The activist, who is also the National Coordinator of Center For Peace And Environmental Justice (CEPEJ), called on leaders of the region to quickly engage the militant  group to halt the unnecessary planned attacks, while also urging government at all levels to swiftly address the fundamental needs and demands of the people.

Instead of attacking critical oil and gas assets and crippling the economy, Chief Sunny Onuesoki, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State, enjoined the Avengers to pressure the National Assembly to restructure the country without further delay.

He opined that with the current elegiac atmosphere pervading the county’s landscape by the sustained murderous activities of Fulani herdsmen, it was ill-timed for the Avengers to resume hostilities to drive home their grievances.

In anyway, it is believed that given the devastating aftermaths of the violent activities of NDA in 2016 which were reportedly instrumental to the ongoing recession in the country, the rising but fragile economy might experience a total collapse if the Wednesday threats see the light of the day.

Therefore, the FG should do the needful before the doomsday prediction in 2018 for Nigeria by the Avengers comes to reality.