New Niger Delta Group Asks Militants to Disarm in
the Interest of Peace
A new group in the South-south region, the New Niger
Delta Emancipation Front (NNDEF), has called on militants operating in the
region to end hostility and embrace peace even as it hailed the deployment of
the military under the ‘Operation Crocodile Smile’ to restore sanity to the
area.
The group, in a statement issued in Abuja today,
noted that the presence of the military in the Niger Delta was crucial to
protect the region’s larger population that has become human pawns to a vocal
minority made of the militants and their sponsors.
The statement which was signed by the group
Director of Public Enlightenment and Awareness, Lucky Humphrey, urged Nigerians
of South-south origin to develop the courage to speak out against the
atrocities being committed against them by militants whom it accused of
imposing their decisions on the entire area without consulting with the wider
public.
It said things could have gone worse had the federal
government succumbed to the blackmail of those resisting military presence in
the Niger Delta under the pretext of calling for negotiation while what they
were actually doing was “buying time for their boys (militants) to mobilise and
gather more weapons.”
The group explained that “the militants who are not
unaware of the global economic meltdown would have resorted to their old ways
of kidnap for ransom but for the vigilance of the military. Had this happened,
only the celebrity kidnap victims would get reported and attract security
intervention while the poorer families would become prey to the small ransom
kidnap syndicates that would operate freely.
“This is why, contrary to the position
of militants’ sponsors who could afford the media hype to counter claims, we
salute President Muhammadu Buhari for deploying military to the region.
“It is in the same vein we advise our
people who have been misled into taking up arms to discard such idea and
structure their intervention for the Niger Delta within the framework of the
legitimate platforms for expressing dissatisfaction by law abiding Nigerians.
“Unrepentant militants should note that
the rest of the Niger Delta would move forward without them in the event that
they suffer the consequences of refusing to disarm. We know from recent
experiences that the arms they bear against the government are not for the
general wellbeing of the Niger Delta people but for some narrow interest for
which they are prepared to commit crimes.”
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