…Splinter group dismisses threat as empty

By Emma Amaize & Perez Brisibe

WARRI—Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, yesterday, insisted that they would go ahead with their planned declaration of independence for a Niger Delta Republic on October 1, if the Nigerian government failed to meet their demand to restructure the country.
The group, in a statement by its spokesperson, self-styled Brig-Gen Mudoch Agbinibo, also prayed that President Muhammadu Buhari and the Northern governors would discover oil in commercial quantities in the North. He said: “The October 1, 2016 declaration of independence is still sacrosanct if the Nigerian government fails to retrace its steps by restructuring this country.

“Our prayer for Buhari and the Northern governors is that oil should be found in commercial quantities in the North, so that they can let the Niger Delta go. “The Buhari-led government has failed Nigerians with its misdirected policies that have divided the country, and consequently nobody wants to be a part of a failed state, not even the Niger Delta.”

However, the alleged group,  Reformed Niger Delta Avengers, RNDA, which claims to be a splinter group of Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, yesterday, said that the claim by Avengers to declare a Niger Delta Republic on October 1, was empty.

Spokesperson of RNDA, Cynthia Whyte, in reaction to the  Avengers threat to declare independence if President Buhari, failed to restructure country by then, said that the warning was a “bankrupt and hollow machination”  of the grand patron of the group.

RNDA alleged that a South-South governor, a militant leader from Rivers State and a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, were part of the plot designed “to cause confusion in the country ahead of the 2019 general election.

“We also regard as nonsensical, the lame attempts by the Ogbia Brotherhood and the Ijaw National Congress, INC to defend the former president,” he said.