Posted by By FEMI FOLARANMI, Yenagoa on
Militants in the Niger Delta have stepped up their attacks on the oil industry as they blew up a pipeline belonging to American oil giant, Chevron. The facility was producing up to 120,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
• Blow up Chevron oil facility
Militants in the Niger Delta have stepped up their attacks on the oil industry as they blew up a pipeline belonging to American oil giant, Chevron. The facility was producing up to 120,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
The attack is seen as a direct response to the call on youths of the region by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), that they should start to sabotage the oil industry.
MEND, in a statement by its spokesman, Jomo Gbomo said the youths who carried out the attack have already contacted them.
While inviting more willing youths to join its army, MEND warned that the President Umar Yar'Adua government could save its face by releasing its detained leader, Henry Okah, to partake in a genuine peace process.
The statement reads in part: 'Heeding the MEND call to sabotage oil installations in oil producing communities, a group of angry youths have contacted us giving details of their involvement in the sabotage of the Chevron Abiteye-Olero crude pipeline.
'The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta wishes to commend these patriotic youths who we are now empowering with more powerful explosives and new techniques to destroy additional pipelines inside Delta State.
'The government still has time to save face by releasing Henry Okah to partake in a genuine peace process before Nigeria 's oil export reaches zero."
Meanwhile, the Action Congress (AC) has expressed regrets that the crisis in the Niger Delta has finally gone out of control with last Thursday's attack on Shell's deep offshore Bonga oil field.
'This hitherto unimaginable attack has finally turned the Niger Delta violence to a crisis of immense proportion that can only spell doom for the Nigerian state," the party said in a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
The party called for a probe into the circumstances leading to the attack on such a deep offshore facility by a supposedly rag-tag band of militants. Said the AC: 'Since the militants' favoured means of mobility - speedboats - will find it difficult to travel that far offshore, such a probe must find out how the militants were able to reach Bonga. Could they have been assisted by a mother vessel? If so, who owns such vessel? Also, what kind of security cordon is in place for such an important facility as the Bonga, which produces over 200,000 barrels of oil per day - which is about one tenth of the country's total oil production?"
The party cautioned the Federal Government against embarking on a 'knee-jerk response to the crisis, especially the resort to a military crackdown and the jamborees in the name of summits of stakeholders."
It said: 'As we have said many times, the real solution to what is fast becoming a declaration of war in the Niger Delta is for the Federal Government to talk to the real stakeholders, not the so-called elders whose stock in trade is to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds to maximize their gains.
'As it is, the Federal Government has either totally ignored the real stakeholders or allowed itself to be deceived into inconsequential MoUs and accords with groups that are only interested in looting the commonwealth for their personal gains.
'We also make bold to say that past, made-for-television summits on the Niger Delta have yielded no positive results. Bringing in even the secretariat of the UN will not make a success of another summit for as long as the real stakeholders - the people in the oil communities themselves - are not involved in such an effort."
The party said the attack on Bonga, located hundreds of kilometres offshore, has shown that the militants in the Niger Delta could attack, without qualms, any facility that catches their fancy in the Niger Delta.
The attack, the party noted, has also shown that the military option cannot and will not work in resolving the crisis that has been the biggest threat yet to Nigeria's economic well being.
It stated further: 'According to government figures, Nigeria is losing 84 million dollars daily to the incessant attacks in the Niger Delta. That translates to about 2.52 billion dollars per month and more than a whopping 30 billion dollars per year.
'Just imagine the impact on the national economy that will result if we inject these funds into our power sector alone - as long as we avoid the Obasanjo-type wastage!"
The party called on the Federal Government to urgently convene a crisis meeting that will include representatives of the oil communities as well as political parties, religious organizations, civil society and oil companies, among others, to look at fresh options in tackling the crisis.