By Samuel OYADONGHA

The nation oil industry Thursday, heaved a sigh of relief following the arrest of Seiyefa Gbereke popularly known as General Cairo in the creek of the Niger Delta by operatives of the Joint Task Force in the Niger Delta code-named Operation Pulo Shield.

Until his arrest Thursday night by the special security forces, ‘Gen Cairo’ was a pain to the oil majors, especially the Anglo Dutch oil giant,  Shell Petroleum Development Company (SDPC) and the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC).

The 25 year old, who claimed to be partly from Bolou Orua in Sagbama council area and Angiama in Southern Ijaw council area of Bayelsa State, not only confessed to being the leader of an eight man militant gang, but that his group was responsible for the recent spate of attacks on SPDC and NAOC facilities in the Ekeremor axis of Bayelsa and Biseni in the central senatorial district of the state.

Gen Cairo, a post-primary school drop-out, in his confessional statement to security operatives ,said the explosives used in vandalizing the oil companies facilities were locally manufactured by his gang.

Some of the facilities destroyed by his gang, he claimed, include the Agip trunk lines in Tebidaba in Southern Ijaw, SPDC flow station at Benesiede in Ekeremor council area, a gas plant in Rivers State, a pipeline that passes through Tuomo in Delta State and well heads at Biseni in the Taylor Creek of Bayelsa State.

The fair complexion militant leader in handcuff and leg chain, who was paraded at the headquarters of the Joint Task Force in Yenagoa, said he was compelled to wage campaign of violence against oil installations in the creek to draw attention for the inclusion of Third Phase amnesty militants into the Federal Government Amnesty programme.