The Niger Delta Avengers, a militant group that has claimed responsibility for several attacks on oil and gas installations across Nigeria’s delta states, on Tuesday, denied agreeing a ceasefire deal with the Nigerian Government.
This is just as another militant group, Niger Delta Red Squad (NDRS), has surfaced in Imo State.
In a tweet yesterday, the Avengers denied reports of a one-month ceasefire deal with the government.
“The NDA High Command never remember (sic) having any agreement on ceasefire with the Nigeria Government”, the group said on its Twitter page.
This is the second time in less than two weeks the group, which has vowed to reduce Nigeria’s production level to zero, would be denying truce with the government.
Meanwhile, the new militant group in Imo State, which claimed bombing of two pipelines belonging to Elf Oil Company at Awara, Ohaji Egbema Local Government Area, also threatened to attack Shell pipelines in Oguta Local Government Area and shut down all oil wells in the state.
The group, in a Facebook post on its wall, boasted that it has what it takes to carry out the threat.
The NDRS warned that until the oil producing areas in the state were given what “rightfully belongs to them”, there would be no peace for oil companies to operate in the state.
It, therefore, warned oil companies to evacuate their workers with immediate effect.
Our correspondent reports that the threat by the NDRS is coming less than two weeks after members of the State House of Assembly queried the exclusion of Imo from Federal Government’s proposed dialogue with oil producing states in Niger Delta to quell the current hostilities by the Avengers.
The lawmakers, during plenary marking the beginning of the new legislative year, argued that the state had been deliberately sidelined by the facilitators of the dialogue because of its youths’ disposition to peace.
They expressed worry that the exclusion might trigger militancy similar to what was happening in other Niger Delta states.
