By Luka Binniyat & Jimitota Onoyume
PORT HARCOURT — WHILE President Umaru Yar’Adua and other government officials were getting ready to announce amnesty plans for militants in the Niger Delta, the Shell pipeline in Bille/Krakrama, Rivers state was attacked by MEND, with a resultant
shutdown of the facility.
The attack has also put out of service the Shell operated Cawthorne Channels 1,2 and 3 flow stations supplying export crude to the Bonny terminal.
In a related development, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has denied paying Niger Delta militants any money to police or even protect petroleum pipelines.
A Shell spokesman who did not want his name in print said an emergency team was already in the area to minimise the likely environmental impact.
“We have received reports of an attack on an SPDC pipeline at Krakrama manifold in eastern operations. The facility has been shut down and an emergency team has been mobilized to limit the environmental impact.”
Meanwhile, Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta, the main militant group in the religion has claimed responsibility for the midnight attack.
MEND should continue until all economic activities are rendered stagnant so that government would do the right thing. And what is the right thing? Resource and Environmental Control. Although this isn’t a tribal struggle, that is, Niger Delta isn’t fighting any other tribe or ethnic group. The Hausa people-though few out of the population have ruled the nation with iron hand and greed-and other so-called majority ethnic groups own and control their land and environment. Why is Niger Delta’s different and when we talk they kill us?
Is it oil and gas? Yes! Why have they not filled their underground tanks and those in space with our oil after over 50 years so they will leave us alone? Why is the government of the Hausa; the Yoruba, and Igbo for themselves against all others so insensitive to the N-Delta question of resource control and true/fiscal federalism when they’re enjoying these rights? They’re bold to talk amnesty to the landlords whereas they’re tenants. Is this not armed robbery, putting the guns on N-Deltan’s head while our oil and gas are siphoned to develop their own homes and fill monies from our veins in foreign banks without end, while the N-Delta child is left in sqaulor; in painful poverty?
I charge MEND to intensify the destruction of all pipelines, flowstation, rigs, etc. so that the foreign oil rogues may also leave the country and do in their home-countries what they’ve done in Niger Delta. Let’s see if their own people will allow them degrade their environment, render their livelihood to zero percent and kill them for asking why to do the right thing.
The Federal Government, their sellout N-Delta states counterparts, dealers who call themselves leaders and the oil companies deserve amnesty and not the landowners. Sadly, it’s only in Nigeria that things like those happening to the weak and disadvantage of the Delta can flow without recourse. There will surely be recourse as we’re seeing with the good works of MEND.
Hmmmmmmm……Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!! Wonders shall never end in Nigeria!