{"id":254953,"date":"2010-01-31T03:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-31T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16711557.post-604645695750601899"},"modified":"2010-01-31T03:01:16","modified_gmt":"2010-01-31T08:01:16","slug":"niger-delta-militants-call-off-truce-with-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/254953","title":{"rendered":"Niger Delta Militants Call Off Truce With Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Weapons stockpile in the Niger Delta. The government of Nigeria has sought to implement an amnesty deal with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. <\/a>
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

Niger Delta militants call off truce with Nigeria<\/p>\n

AP<\/p>\n

Lagos–The main militant group in the oil-rich Niger Delta called off its ceasefire with the government yesterday morning, dealing a potential death blow to a presidential amnesty programme aimed at ending violence that has crippled production in the West African nation.<\/p>\n

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta issued a statement saying it would no longer abide by the unconditional October 25 ceasefire President Umaru Yar\u2019Adua had negotiated with the group.<\/p>\n

The militants warned oil producers with pipelines and personnel working in the creeks and swamps of the Delta that it would wage an \u201can all-out onslaught\u201d against them. The Mend \u201cwarns all oil companies to halt operations as any operational installation attacked will be burnt to the ground\u201d, the statement read.<\/p>\n

\u201cOil companies are responsible for the safety and welfare of their workers and will bear the guilt should any harm come upon their staff in the event of an attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cMilitants in the Niger Delta have attacked pipelines, kidnapped petroleum company employees and fought government troops since January 2006. They demand that the federal government send more oil-industry funds to Nigeria’s southern region, which remains poor despite five decades of oil production. Violence has cut Nigeria’s oil production by about one million barrels a day, allowing Angola to surge ahead as Africa\u2019s top oil producer.<\/p>\n

Still, Nigeria remains the number three crude oil supplier to the US, offering the country nearly a million barrels a day in November, according to US government statistics.<\/p>\n

Mend announced it had brokered an unconditional ceasefire with the Nigerian government on October 25, but later said it broke the agreement to attack a pipeline December 19.<\/p>\n

The group said it attacked the line due to the long absence of Yar’Adua, who remains in Saudi Arabia receiving medical treatment for what his doctor described as a heart condition. Militants have questioned whether the amnesty programme Yar’Adua promised them \u2014 which included cash payments to former fighters \u2014 has been frozen in his absence.<\/p>\n

Part of the amnesty programme included offering the Niger Delta improvements to its decaying roads and government facilities. The militants\u2019 statement last Saturday claims nothing has been done so far and said states in northern Nigeria would receive benefits for having a pipeline pass through them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis government is hoping it can divide the people of the Delta in order to govern and plunder the Niger Delta,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll who have misled the government and oil companies into such inanity will be put to shame.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut questions remain about what power the Mend still wields. The amnesty programme pulled away some fighters and weapons. The militants said they sanctioned a recent attack on a pipeline owned by a subsidiary of Chevron Corporation, but didn’t carry it out. They claimed to have no hand in the kidnapping of three Britons and a Colombian working as contractors on a Royal Dutch Shell plc project \u2014 the first high-profile ransom grab in months. The Nigerian military also didn\u2019t confirm the pipeline attack the Mend said it carried out December 19. Still, the militant group struck a defiant tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cActing like a victor over a conquered people, the government rolled out a list of its plans for the Delta which it assumed would end decades of agitation, promising at the same time to deal with all who remained dissatisfied with its lame effort to redress the injustice in the Niger Delta,\u201d their statement read. \u2014
<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weapons stockpile in the Niger Delta. The government of Nigeria has sought to implement an amnesty deal with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos Niger Delta militants call off truce with Nigeria AP Lagos–The main militant group in the oil-rich Niger Delta called off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4243,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-254953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}