Niger Delta militants on Monday threatened to spill blood and unleash greater carnage on oil firms’ facilities and federal interests if by Friday, the Federal Government fails to meet their conditions.

The militants

Photo: Sun News Publishing

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Warning the authorities not to test their will, the militants said they would carry out “Operation Black Mamba Strike” at the expiration of the latest deadline, which would include attacking oil facilities and perhaps taking more hostages.

An earlier ultimatum issued to the government expired Monday.

According to the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), government would be mistaken if it construed its magnanimity in releasing six of the nine oil workers it snatched on February 18, as a sign of weakness and cowardice.

The group, in a statement sent to media houses, restated its demands, including a fresh one calling on government to revisit the contentious demand of delegates from the zone to the National Political Reforms Conference. The delegates had requested the endorsement of 25 per cent derivation fund allocation for states in the region. This is to appreciate at a 20 per cent rate for five consecutive years culminating in 50 per cent resource allocation.

The confab ended without any agreement on the hotly debated issue. Indeed, the South-South delegates staged a walk-out following opposition by their northern counterparts.

The organisation’s demands include: The release of the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Asari Dokubo, the former Governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Joshua Mceriah, an Ijaw activist reportedly jailed in Kaduna recently.

Others are: $1.5 billion compensation ordered by a court to be paid by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) for oil exploration in the area, as well as resource control.

The militants said the “Black Mamba Strike” has been deferred till March 10 “to minimise casualties and to offer ample room for government to crystallise her commitments to our demands.”

They expressed loss of confidence in President Olusegun Obasanjo’s commitment to resolving the crisis, describing him as “a third term freak” who is pre-occupied with extending his tenure and uses divide and rule tactics.

The militants said the Federal Government must be held responsible for “forcing our hands to arms in the open ridicule of our mothers, fathers, cousins and nephews yet unborn.”

MEND empowered a non-governmental organisation, Union and Integration of the Niger Delta Child for Youth Development (UNIFYD) to represent it and pursue, alongside existing channels of negotiation, the interpretation of the context of its demands with foreign organisations and countries such as the United Nations, United States and Britain.

“We had lost faith in the presidential will of Obasanjo to negotiate the release of the hostages. We are pepping our arsenal for Operation Black Mamba! The 10th of March is around the corner. The blood of MEND shall wash the Niger Delta of every atrocity perpetrated against her by the Nigerian state and her foreign collaborators and whatever consequence befalls our rebellion. The bones of Major Isaac Adaka Boro shall comfort our martyrdom… The revolution of MEND shall stand for the emancipation of the Niger Deltan child,” the group said.

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