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B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News |
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Niger-Delta militant group demands sovereignty
MUJAHID Dokubo-Asari, the leader of a militant group that is carrying out sustained military attacks on Rivers State, is unrelenting in his cause.
Agency reports said that his group, the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), attacked soldiers at a waterfront location in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital yesterday. Casualties were not immediately known.
Dokubo-Asari, in a satellite phone interview with a news agency Reuters, yesterday raised the levers of demands by his group to include the convening of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) by the Federal Government.
At such a conference of ethnic nationalities, Dokubo-Asari added, members of his Ijaw stock will either secure political reforms or gain sovereignty from Nigeria.
"We were forced into Nigeria by the British colonialists. We are not Nigerians... there is no such nation as Nigeria," he said.
The militant group's leader added: "Until there is a SNC to decide these issues, we have no choice but to fight until sovereignty is in our hands."
He disclosed plans to extend his group's uprising to the other parts of Nigeria, and threatened to attack Italian oil installations and personnel for using its helicopters to spy on rebel positions.
Companies fear a repeat of last year's uprising by members of the Ijaw nationality, which forced them to shut temporarily 40 per cent of the country's 2.5 million barrel per day output.
Oil production has not yet been affected by the latest intensifying conflict, but multinational oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell evacuated 235 non-essential employees from two oilfields last Thursday.
"We have decided to declare Operation Locust Feast, which will cover the whole Niger-Delta. It is going to be an all-out war against the Nigerian state. Now, the whole Ijaw nation will be fighting against the Nigerian state," Dokubo-Asari told Reuters.
The conflict has until now been focused around Port Harcourt, which pumps a substantial part of the country's oil. The Ijaws are spread across the coastal areas of some six states in the Niger-Delta and are the fourth largest ethnic group in the country.
The government launched a major military offensive two weeks ago against the militants and used helicopter gunships to bomb one of his camps last week. Dokubo-Asari accused the military of using chemical weapons against his men, causing burns and blisters on their skin. The army denied this.
Dokubo-Asari accused the government of breaking a ceasefire agreed on September 3, and said the NDPVF, which he estimated had 168,000 members, would fight until the government agreed to call a SNC where the country's nationalities could negotiate the terms of the Nigerian federation.
Dokubo-Asari says he is fighting to improve the lot of the Niger-Delta people, most of who live in abject poverty despite having all the nation's oil reserves. The government calls him a gangster fighting for control of smuggling routes used by oil thieves.
A NDPVF commander told Reuters last week that the group would target oil wells and pipelines in the Niger-Delta if the military continued its attacks.
Dokubo-Asari said he had already decided to target Agip, although a meeting of commanders would soon decide if all oil companies should become targets.
"Agip loaned the Nigerian state a helicopter to spy on our positions. After that they came with fighter jets and helicopters to bomb us," Dokubo-Asari said.
"Since Agip has joined the Nigerian state, we will attack them if we see them. We will attack their installations and personnel because they have joined the war on the side of the Nigerian state."
An Agip spokeswoman in Italy said the company's helicopters were used exclusively for the company's operations.
"We have no reason to believe that ENI's infrastructure or personnel are in a dangerous situation. Production is continuing as normal," she said.
The Nigerian Agip Oil Company, a joint venture in which ENI has 80 per cent equity operates four oil production areas in the Niger-Delta. In 2002, the fields where ENI is operator generated around 10 per cent of Nigeria's total oil production.`
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