MEND Nigeria-Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta-MEND-Official News Site -tracking News, Articles, Interviews and Opinions, related to MEND- from 1999 to Present

02/28/2006

Warri — THERE are fresh worries in Delta State that the nine foreign oil workers kidnapped February 18 by the Movement for Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) may not be freed soon with their abductors making a fresh demand of compensation on the Federal Government for the families of the villagers allegedly shot dead and injured by the Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Niger Delta in the three-day bombardment of Ijaw communities.

02/28/2006

Lagos/Warri — Apparently dreading a possible all-out battle between militants, holding nine expatriate oil workers as hostages, and men of the Nigerian Army, hundreds of people from the Gbaramatu Kingdom in Warri have started moving out of the community.

02/27/2006

column Lagos — Between the last two weeks when this column was last published and today, three major incidents with grave implications for the peace of the polity had occured. The first was the sudden outburst in Maiduguri in which some deranged religious fanatics wreaked violence on their fellow citizens simply because they came from other parts of the country and belong to a different faith. The Maiduguri mayhem had sparked a retaliatory one in Onitsha where many citizens were killed equally on irrational basis and properties worth millions of naira were destroyed.

02/26/2006

GOVERNOR James Ibori of Delta State and the Federal Government raised hope, Tuesday, that the nine foreign oil workers kidnapped in his state, last weekend, were hale and cheerful and would be released soon, but the next day, Wednesday, when the governor spoke again to the press, he was not as promising and confident as he was 24 hours earlier. Today makes it the eighth-day that the workers are in unlawful custody and indication that they would be released in a jiffy is fizzling out. The governor who preferred to call the militants "our younger brothers" confirmed that the kidnappers said they would not want to talk about the release of the hostages until they finished mourning and burial of villagers that were killed in the air raid by the Joint Task Force (JTF) at Okerenkoko.

02/25/2006

IS the appalling show being adapted to stage by armed militants in the restive Niger-Delta region, that is the kidnap of nine foreign oil workers and devastation of the nation's oil installations in Delta state of late, truly an aftermath of the February 15-18 operation by the Joint Task Force (JTF), code-named Operation Restore Hope to destroy some barges suspected to be used for oil bunkering?

02/25/2006

Lagos — NIGER Delta militants yesterday paraded of the nine foreign hostages before newsmen, vowing not to release the kidnapped oil workers until the military pulls out of the Niger Delta region. The hostage, Macon Hawkins. 68-year-old Texan, told reporters that he and his colleagues were unharmed and had been well treated since gunmen seized them from their pipe-laying barge.

02/25/2006

column ONITSHA erupted. The indescribable anger that provoked the killings in the city by the lordly Niger reflect the mood in the land. First, was the killing of Igbo and other Christians, starting from Maidugri, and spreading rapidly to other places in the North, in a familiar wave of atrocity. This time, the excuse was provided by the images of Muhammed. A mob of Moslem fanatics in the north of Nigeria, reacting to the mostly unflattering representation of the prophet of Islam in a Danish newspaper, over reached themselves when they began killing and burning other Nigerians in protest. They went after a familiar target: the ubiquitous Igbo; the symbol for the northern Moslem fanatic, of all the things that is wrong with his world. The Nigerian version of the protests against the Danish newspaper cartoons, in other words, took a unique turn: while Moslems all over the world directed their anger against the West, especially the European Union; burning flags and torching embassies, the Nigerian Moslem turned his attention to the Igbo, burning and killing; determined to throw one more symbolic punch in the cycle which began with the killing of the Igbo in 1945 in Jos, and when Inua Wada organized the first Kano pogroms in 1953. Needless to say, it has always been taken for granted that the Igbo would roll over and take it. But this proved to be a miscalculation.

02/24/2006

Warri/Port Harcourt — The crisis in the Niger Delta assumed international dimension yesterday as the Warri Ijaw Peace Monitoring Group (WIPMG) sent a warning to the government of the United States of America (USA) to steer clear of the Niger Delta or its forces shall be disgraced if it dares the people.

02/24/2006

column Lagos — December 10 last year, I gave a talk to the Rotary Club of Apakun Oshodi, in Lagos. Because I had become bored by long written speeches, where many government officials hide to dodge candid discussions on critical issues, I decided to speak extempore. While I waited for the flight at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, I tried to think of what to speak on. One of the things that interfered with my concentration was the noise and chatter of the happy students of Loyola Jesuit College, Abuja, who filled the hot waiting lounge.

02/24/2006

IJAW militants yesterday alleged that the United States of America (USA) military personnel have stormed the Niger Delta region following the crises that engulfed the area in recent times. Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) and Warri-Ijaw Peace Monitoring Group, made the allegation in separate statements and warned U.S government to steer clear of the Niger Delta so as not to aggravate the situation.