@ Batubo
You have a very rich collection
Na Allah may have apologised,but I'm telling you he spoke the minds of most non ND lawmakers,I wonder how patient Na Allah and his brothers would have felt if all the oil exploration and it's attendant pollution,spillages,flares and the rest were happening in his domain

ono:

The approach suggested by someone in here that the military or the FG should have sent some military/security intelligence into the area to properly understand who the real agitators are and then fishout the criminal elements is so far the best contribution to this thread.

A responsible government will not send out their military in the manner YarAdua did.

Yar Adua is CLUELESS

ALL NIGER DELTA SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN MEETING ON SATURDAY 30 MAY 2009.
Agenda: The current military actions in the Niger Delta

We the people of the Niger Delta in the UK have agreed to come together under the umbrella of the Niger Delta Solidarity Group to work together towards creating awareness in the western world, especially in the UK, about the conflict in our homeland.

We wish to engage in a campaign to actively inform the media,
parliamentarians, western governments and also disseminate information to the general public about the atrocities being committed in our homeland by the Nigerian military authorities.

We owe it to our fathers, mothers and children at home to use our
privileged position of living in the UK, far away from the media black- out, oppression and military controls to bring the plight of our oppressed people to the attention of the world.

Together we can help to bring an immediate cessation of the ongoing military onslaught on our people, and contribute to positive change and a peaceful resolution of the Niger Delta crisis.

Lets not forget that as well as the military activities; there is a
propaganda war that is being waged against our people. The federal government and it’s state organs are painting a picture to the world that the on going campaign is against criminals and militants, but we know that it is our fathers, mothers and children that are being massacred.


RESOLUTIONS

1.We have agreed to hold public demonstrations at the Nigerian high commission in London to protest against the current and on-going military onslaught against our people. Date, time and place will be communicated to you as soon as possible.

2. A petition will be sent to the United Nation, British Prime
Minister, UK House of parliament, European Union office in London and other international organizations.

3. We will be organizing a church service to pray for the souls of all the innocent people that have lost their lives in our homeland in the present and past military campaigns by the Nigerian military. Please find details below:

DATE: SATURDAY 30TH MAY 2009

TIME: ALL TO BE SEATED BY 1.30 PM
SERVICE STARTS AT 2PM TO 3PM

REFRESHMENTS AT CHURC HALL FROM 3PM TO 4.30PM

ADDRESS:

PARISH CHURCH OF OUR LADY
54 LODGE ROAD
ST JOHN'S WOOD
LONDON NW8 8LA

LODGE ROAD IS BETWEEN PARK ROAD AND LISSON GROVE IN ST JOHN'S WOOD
LODGE ROAD IS BESIDE LORDS CRICKET GROUND.

NEAREST UNDERGROUND IS ST JOHN'S WOOD STATION.
3. We intend to take out full-page colored advertisements in some UK newspapers to explain the perspective of the Niger Delta people, subject to Niger Delta community members contributing the necessary resources for us to make this possible.

4. We wish to form alliances with all Niger Delta organizations,
humanitarian organizations and all other similar organizations that
would be sympathetic to our cause.

5. We wish to explore the possibility of taking litigation against the
perpetrators of these crimes against humanity that are being committed against our people in the international courts.

We will be setting up the following committees to co-ordinate the
affairs of the campaign.

1. A legal committee
2. A public relations/media committee
3. An information/Data collection Committee
4. A strategic planning committee

A provisional committee was set up to organize and supervise the
implementation of the resolutions adopted.

We are calling on ALL sons and daughters of the Niger Delta region and all others who oppose the brutal and atrocious actions of the Nigerian authorities to join us in this campaign. Let us put our differences to rest and come together for the common good of our shared heritage, people and land.


Another meeting will be held soon. The date, time and place will be communicated to you.

You are all called upon to reach out to all your friends, relatives
and other people from our region and anywhere in the world that you know, by email, phone or text messages, so that we can effectively mobilize more people in this campaign.


Inemo Samiama

Co-ordinator for the Niger Delta Solidarity campaign

N’Delta: ‘Agitators must rise against criminal elements’
By John Ameh, Tunde Odesola, Sebastine Ebhuomhan, Chukwudi Akasike and Adelani Adepegba
Published: Tuesday, 26 May 2009
The Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr. Godswill Akpabio, on Monday called on agitators in the Niger Delta to carry out internal cleansing by flushing out the criminal elements who had hijacked the genuine struggle for resource control in the region.

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Akwa Ibom State Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio

Akpabio noted that the resort to kidnappings and killings by some militant gangs did not portray the struggle as genuine.

He spoke in Abuja as the lead discussant during the 7th National Roundtable on Good Governance organised by a group in the House of Representatives, The Initiatives, on the topic, “The Niger Delta Crisis and the Challenges of Leadership.”

His comments came just as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, observed that the criminal elements in the region had not been fair to the administration of President Umaru Yar’Adua.

He recalled that out of the N3.1tn budgeted by the Federal Government for the entire country this year, the nine states in the Niger Delta alone would take N1.5tn, about half of the budget size.

Akpabio said, “Let the militants rise against themselves and sort out the criminals among them.

“Those who are genuinely agitating for their rights must rise against those who have infiltrated their ranks; they did not need the Federal Government to send the Joint Task Force to the region to do the self-cleansing for them.

“You kidnap a poor girl and kill her, then you send a message to the father to go and claim the corpse. Those you kill, are they not from the Niger Delta?”

Meanwhile, the continued onslaught of the JTF against the militants has resulted in the displacement of more people.

The situation has also brought increased challenges to relief agencies in the Niger Delta such the National Emergency Management Agency and the Nigerian Red Cross.

Our correspondent learnt on Monday that the Director-General of NEMA, AVM Mohammed Audu-Bida (rtd), had directed the immediate movement of more relief materials to affected communities and opening of more camps for the displaced.

Audu-Bida’s order came on the heels of NEMA’s establishment of a camp at a primary school in Ogbe-Ijoh community, Warri South West Local Government, to cater for the needs of victims.

When our correspondent visited NEMA National Headquarters in Abuja, on Monday, neither the DG nor the Head of Public Relations Office, Mr. Yushau Shuaib, was around.

They were said to have travelled along with some other top officials of the agency to Delta State where they were assessing and responding to the needs of displaced people.

Also, the Conference of Ethnic Nationalities in Niger Delta has called on the Federal Government to end the military onslaught in the oil-rich region.

It said that rather than attacking the region, government should face the problems affecting the people squarely with a view to finding solutions to them.

The president of the group, Prof. Kimse Okoko, who described the military action as premeditated, argued that the continued bombing of communities in the region would not stop the genuine agitation of the people.

He said that the invasion by soldiers was an indication that the Nigerian Army was not disciplined enough.

He said, “We are not at home with the attack on communities in the Niger Delta region. It is clear that the military action is premeditated.

“It is one thing to bomb Ijaw communities, it is another thing to annihilate the Ijaw nation. The Ijaw nation cannot be annihilated.

“There is no army in a civilised world that will do what the soldiers are doing in the Niger Delta now. It is as if we are back to the barbaric days.”

Also, anxiety has descended on the 82 Division of the Nigerian Army, Enugu, over the fate of 11 missing JTF soldiers, six of whom were drawn from the barracks in the state.

Our correspondent gathered on Monday that the six soldiers from Enugu division reportedly included a captain, and other infantry soldiers.

Though the names of the soldiers were yet to be officially disclosed, the families of those involved in the JTF operation from Enugu have become apprehensive that their loved ones might have been part of the casualties in the Niger Delta.

A soldier who spoke on condition of anonymity said that there had been apprehension in the barracks since the news broke, adding that the army was doing everything to ensure that the concerned families did not get to know the identities of those who had been declared missing in the operation.

A human rights group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, has also called on the United Nations to prevail on its Human Rights Council to address the human rights situation that has been thrown up as a result of the ongoing military onslaught in the Niger Delta.

In another development, the Chairman, Nigerite Nigeria Limited, Dr. Yemi Oladimeji, has said that palliative measures will not solve the issue of youth restiveness in the country.

Speaking during the donation of motorcycles and grinding machines to members of the Osun State Peoples Democratic Party in Osogbo, on Monday, Oladimeji said the government must provide concrete developmental initiatives in order to stop the restiveness.

Oladimeji, who is the leader of Imole De group – a major political bloc within the PDP in Osun State, explained that concerted private-public initiatives were needed to free the country from the jaws of militancy.