Barely two months after it announced the end of its ceasefire on November 3, 2017, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) on Wednesday warned the federal government to brace up for rounds of attacks it would soon unleash on oil and gas facilities in the country.
The militant group has also stated that with the recent killing across the country, the time is ripe for the restructuring of the country, adding that anybody who is against restructuring is an enemy of this country and particularly an enemy of the Niger Delta Avengers.
In a statement posted on Wednesday on its website by its spokesperson, Maj.Gen Murdoch Agbinibo, the dreaded militant group stated that it had concluded all arrangements to carry out deadly attacks in a few days’ time.
The group said it would be targeting the deep sea operations of the international oil companies (IOCs) and others littered across the deep waters of the Niger Delta region.
NDA also cautioned the operators of the Egina Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) vessel, which is sailing to Nigeria from South Korea, to let the facility stay where ever it is, adding that the group is tracking the movement of the vessel.
The militant group stated that it had resolved that the killings and division presently playing out in Nigeria along divergent grounds makes this period the perfect time to restructure this country.
“While promising a brutal outpour of our wrath, which shall shake the coffers of the failed Nigerian nation, our demand unambiguously is for the government to restructure the country. On the 3rd of November 2017 we promised to reactivate "operation red economy" but as usual some overzealous and over patriotic elders intervened and appealed as they have done twice before then for us to avail them some more time to attend to the demands of the Niger Delta as championed by the Niger Delta Avengers,” the group said.
The group noted that it region has not achieved any meaningful results despite the opportunities, stressing that the Niger Delta elders are either irresponsible or the Nigerian government is not sincere with them as it is their trade in stock.
It stated that anybody against restructuring is an enemy of this country, saying that it will not rest until such enemies are defeated by the Niger Delta people who earnestly seek to control our own resources.
NDA argued that while $1 billion from the excess crude account is to be released to fight a Boko Haram in the North, successive governments have acted blind to the challenges facing the region from which the $1 billion is generated.
It accused the federal government of deriving pleasure in “sending their unprofessional and weak military to invade our communities and subject our already sick and suffering people to more hardship and poverty”.
“Only a few days ago the Nigerian Army released 244 members of the murderous Boko Haram sect to Borno state government while thousands of innocent Niger Delta youths continue to suffer in various prisons across the country for no just cause,” the group added.
It called for the immediate release of all Niger Deltans Activists and freedom fighters that are held captive by the Nigeria Armed Forces.
The militant group had launched its presence in the country on February 14, 2016, when it carried out an attack on the Trans-Forcados pipeline, the first subsea attack on oil and gas installations in the country.
The incident had forced Shell on February 21, 2016 to declare force majeure on liftings of forcados grade of crude oil.
Companies hit by the attack include: Shell, Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc, Shoreline Resources Limited, Neconde, First Hydrocarbon Nigeria (FHN) and NPDC.
Some marginal field producers such as Pillar Oil, Midwestern Oil and Gas, Platform Petroleum and Energia were also affected, which reduced some of the affected companies’ oil production to zero in most parts of 2016.
Before it declared ceasefire later in the year, the NDA had carried out a wave of attacks on oil facilities in 2016 that disrupted the production of 1 million barrels per day from the country’s daily output, which was then close to 2.3 million barrels per day.
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