The group made the comment during a recent interview with Vanguard. Excerpts below:
We
have made our position clear to the world that Tompolo had been a
friend to the Nigerian government, since the declaration of Presidential
amnesty by President Yar’Adua and he will continue to be a friend to
the government as he cannot be trusted with our struggle, so he can
never be our Sponsor.
This phase of our struggle
encapsulates our determination to ensure that the petro-dollar from the
Niger Delta is not used to develop the 97 per cent (95 per cent ) of
those President Buhari claimed voted for him as against the five per
cent he said did not vote for him and are not worthy of a Maritime
University. Therefore, it is not a coincidence as far as the Niger Delta
struggle is concerned.
In the first instance, we
suspended hostilities in good faith to see if the government of the day
was sincerely speaking when it announced its dialogue initiative. That
was why for strategic reasons we did not make open declaration of our
cessation of hostilities. We wanted to watch and to show Nigerians and
the world the insincerity of the government’s dialogue plans.
Until
we resumed operations, nobody reached out to us and government did not
establish any genuine platform to address our grievances. Until
President Buhari takes our demands seriously and set up a genuine
framework to address the Niger Delta question, we will continue to
obstruct all avenues to export our crude oil to develop his 97 per cent
(95 per cent). I
n fact, whenever we have any
contact to establish a genuine negotiation and dialogue, we will not
hesitate to let the world know that we are in dialogue with the
government and her representatives.
This is
another phase of the Niger Delta struggle to reclaim our resources for
prosperity. Some mischief-makers can tag it Ijaw struggle, but our set
short, medium and long-term plans are for us the people of the Niger
Delta to control our resources and develop our land and pay tax to the
central government.
The people of the Niger Delta
are born into polluted environment since the day they discovered oil in
Oloibiri in commercial quality and quantity. The oil companies and the
government have been good in tagging the host communities saboteurs,
vandals, etc for pollution of the environment everyday to evade their
responsibility, as they did in Ogoniland, even though there is an
ongoing political charade they call clean up. However, it is part of the
sacrifice Niger Delta communities and people will bear to take back
their land and resources.
We have stated our
objectives, which are in three categories. It is President Buhari’s
responsibility to show political will to address them, we do not want
‘peace of our time,’ we want ‘peace with honour.’ There are no new
demands on the table, what every past government has given the people of
Niger Delta is graveyard peace.
Conclusively, we
respect and adore all former leaders of the Niger Delta struggle. namely
Elder T. Ogoriba, Dr Felix Tuodolo, Tompolo, Alhaji Asari Dokubo, Chief
Ateke Tom, Farah Dagogo, Victor Ben (Boyloaf) and others.
They
have contributed to the struggle immensely in past time, but please we
want them to stay clear of our path as we do not want their personal
interests to interfere with this phase of the agitation.
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