Niger Delta Avengers Hit NNPC’s Crude, Gas Trunklines in Delta

 Okrika, NIGERIA: Masked Ateke Tom militants hold their guns as they arrive at their camp, 13 April 2007, in Okrika, Rivers State. Ateke Tom is the leader of the Niger Delta Vigilante, an ethnic Ijaw militia in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Many militant groups in the delta say they are fighting for the control of government oil wells. Five people, including a senior police officer, were killed in clashes between rival cult gangs in southern Nigeria's oil-rich state of Rivers, the police said today. AFP PHOTO / LIONEL HEALING (Photo credit should read LIONEL HEALING/AFP/Getty Images)

•  Demands self-rule, not pipeline protection contracts
• Vandalisation will hurt Delta more than FG, says Okowa

 By Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba and Sylvester Idowu in Warri

Rampaging militants of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) on Thursday night bombed another pipeline belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) around Batan community, in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta state

In a message on its Twitter handle, the renewed face of militancy in the oil-rich Niger Delta said that it carried out the bombing just before midnight on Thursday.

The group noted that it carried out the attack in keeping with its warning that the international oil company should not attempt to fix its strategic pipeline at Abitiye area which the group had blown up recently.

The NDA said that it successfully carried out the bombing of the pipeline despite the fact that the facility was heavily guided by military personnel.

The group while acknowledging the reported meeting of Niger-Delta stakeholders meeting held last Wednesday in Abuja, said it was as an insult to the sensibility of the people of the Niger Delta region, which it said needed independence from the Nigerian federation.

NDA said it was infuriated by talks of the federal government offering the region palliatives including contracts to carry out surveillance of pipelines in the region against vandalism and crude theft.

“The Niger Delta stakeholders’ meeting is an insult to the people of the Niger Delta. What we need is a sovereign state, not pipeline contracts”, it declared.

It further warned via its Tweeter handle: “To the International Oil Companies, IOCs and the Nigeria military, watch out! Something big is about to happen and it would shock the whole world.”

There are growing lamentations by the federal government and other state holders about the huge financial losses due to the drastic cuts created by the series of oil facility bombings just as electricity supply in most parts of the country has hit very low levels owing to shortage of gas supply.

THISDAY recalled that last Thursday night’s bombing of the trunkline took place less than 12 hours after an attack on two Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) facilities, which was said to have grounded the multinational company’s entire swamp operations in Delta State.

The renewed attacks also coincided with NDA’s ultimatum to oil companies operating in the Niger Delta to stop production and move out of the region.....

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