By Ekanpou Enewaridideke

THE Niger Delta, once calm like Matthew Arnold’s ‘Dover Beach’ after the formal commencement of the 2009 Amnesty Programme created by Late President Umaru Musa Yar ‘Adua which made Tompolo and other freedom activists embrace absolute peace unambiguously, now boils kodokodo. The Niger Delta boils; the Niger Delta boils because the Niger Delta Avengers, stuck to a new development ideology of their own creation, opposed to Tompolo’s revolutionary philosophy, has made the destruction of oil installations and facilities in Nigeria their pastime.

Stuck to this ideology of destruction for reconstruction, crippling the already dwindling Nigerian economy, their touchlight constantly beamed on the motivations behind this new-fangled ideology of destruction and the antidote to this oil-installation bombardment, when resources should be deployed towards the emasculation of this visible virus, some vindictive, blood-thirsty ethnic champions in Delta State have worked out a strategy to link communities and personalities they had long penciled down for destruction to Niger Delta Avengers. This is why communities like Ayakoromo, Ogulagha and Ogbe-Ijoh have been vindictively linked to Niger Delta Avengers just as personalities like Chief Boro Opudu, Hon. Frank Omare and Chief Aribogha Johnny who have been similarly caught up in this rampaging fever of linkage to Niger Delta Avengers. To get these communities and personalities entrapped and destroyed by the Nigerian Federal Government is the motivational stimulant for these ethnic champions who daily manipulate intelligence to galvanise Government into military bombardment of Ayakoromo, Ogulagha, Ogbe-Ijoh and these personalities.

One would not have been perturbed by this vindictive intelligence-manipulation by this disgusting cabal of ethnic champions against targeted communities and personalities but for the fact that the Nigerian military could unprofessionally VALORISE this clearly doctored intelligence and rhythmically MAMBO to the deafeningly tempting drums of ethnic champions as it has often happened in the Niger Delta. It was on the strength of dangerously manipulated intelligence that the 1999 ODI MASSACRE was perpetrated against Ijaw people. In 2009 Gbaramatu Kingdom was militarily bombarded on manipulated intelligence just as Ayakoromo community was bombarded in 2010 by JTF on the doctored intelligence that Late John Togo was using Ayakoromo as an operational base to wage war against the Nigerian Army over his claimed disenchantment with the post-Amnesty programme. In all the suffocating experiences of these communities when they were bombarded by the Nigerian army, it was the cabal of ethnic champions who manipulated the intelligence-gathering mechanism to the macabre, unprofessional exhilaration of the Nigerian soldiers who correspondingly descended militarily on these communities. Sadly, these blood-thirsty, cannibalistic, vindictive, manipulative cabal of ethnic champions is at their game of instigation and destruction through intelligence-distortion mechanism.

Currently, Aladja, an Urhobo community in Udu Local government Area, and Ogbe-Ijoh, an Ijaw community in Warri South-West Council of Delta State, are at war; this is purely a communal war between brothers and sisters which would be settled in no distant time considering the prompt intervention of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa. Rather than channel resources towards the end of the communal war, the shameless ethnic champions have begun to create SPIRALLING TENSION through intelligence-manipulation.

To this shameless cabal of ethnic champions, the communal war between Aladja and Ogbe-Ijoh is indeed a war between Urhobo and Ijaw to which both nationalities should deploy all resources towards execution. For a war everybody knows is over land dispute, the cabal of ethnic champions has rhetorically cast it as a war sponsored by Chief Boro Opudu, Hon. Frank Omare and Chief Aribogha Johnny through the engagement of the services of Niger Delta Avengers. For Chief Boro Opudu, the current chairman of DELTA WATERWAYS and LAND SECURITY COMMITTEE, Hon. Frank Omare, the Director-general of SPECIAL PROGRAMME, Delta State, and Chief Aribogha Jonny, a resourceful businessman, what would actually profit them to sponsor a communal war in which they would be equally impacted?

Beyond the tendentious disparagement of Opudu, Omare and Johnny by linking them to NDA, the cabal of ethnic champions has also drummed up a propaganda that members of NDA are strategising in Ogulagha community in Burutu Local Government Area to attack Aladja. Dangerous and fictitious as this propaganda is, the cabal worsened it by another verbally embellished explosion that the members of Niger Delta Avengers are now hiding in Ayakoromo, a community in Burutu Local Government Area. Where would be the communities of this cabal of ethnic champions if the Nigerian Army is most unprofessionally instigated to launch attack against these communities on the basis of manipulated intelligence? Would their communities be able to withstand the backlash from these communities when attacked by JTF? Wouldn’t this instigation trigger off a continuum of communal wars in Delta State?

The cabal of ethnic champions had better been reawakened to the fact that Ayakoromo is a community of intellectuals, Christians, Muslims and African traditional religionists which has an unfathomable repulsion against criminality and so can never be associated with NDA. In the turbulent days of Late John Togo, Ayakoromo mystically carried out PURIFICATION RITES and intelligently partnered with JTF on intelligence-gathering, intelligence-analysis and intelligence-harnessing mechanism towards the annihilation of the inglorious era of John Togo.

The JTF will never forget this alliance, this partnership, Ayakoromo community shrewdly forged with the JTF soldiers during John Togo’s season of CHASTISEMENT. So Ayakoromo community should not be vindictively linked to NDA just as Ogulagha, Ogbe-Ijoh, Boro Opudu, Hon. Frank Omare and Chief Aribogha Johnny be left alone by the cabal of ethnic champions in their impulsive unedited instigation of Ijaw communities against the Nigerian Federal Government.

It was still on the strength of manipulated intelligence that soldiers recently descended on Gbaramatu kingdom on 30 May 2016 and caused havoc there. With the manipulated intelligence the soldiers believed that NDA members were in Gbaramatu, descended on the kingdom and allegedly ended up arresting ten innocent people. The rampaging cabal of ethnic champions has even become more dangerous than the dreaded NDA. As it has been lethally perfected by the cabal of ethnic champions, many communities would become victims of military bombardment through systematic instigation except the eyes of the soldiers are timely opened to this continuum of Intelligence manipulation.

Now that the cabal of ethnic champions deploys weapons of mass destruction, far more sophisticated than the weapons of NDA which began its oil-installations attack on February, 10, February 14, February 19, May 4, May 5, May 13, May 20, May 25, May 27, may 21 June 1, June 2 and June 3 in 2016, vindictively pushing hitherto calm communities into communal wars and impending counter-communal wars, the Nigerian Army, Navy, Airforce and other security agencies should demonstrate superior professional capability in intelligence- gathering, intelligence-analysis, intelligence-sharing and optimization of intelligence gathered in their search for members of NDA.

The falsified, exaggerated tempting propaganda of the cabal of ethnic champions must not become the COMPASS, the NAVIGATOR, for military operations in the Niger Delta as the visible PROFESSIONAL BLUNDERS recorded in the military operations in the Niger Delta in 1999, 2009 and 2010 are enough to CONSCIENTISE the army in intelligence-gathering, intelligence-analysis and intelligence-harnessing in their ongoing military moves to hunt down NDA, particularly now that the cabal of ethnic champions has honed their talents to destroy Ayakoromo, Ogulagha, Ogbe-Ijoh, Boro Opudu, Hon. Frank Omare and Chief Aribogha Johnny by baselessly linking them to NDA and pathologically savour, enjoy, the RESULTANT TURBULENCE in the Niger Delta.

*Mr. Enewaridideke, a public affairs commentator, wrote from Akparemogbene, Delta State.