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

06/27/2008

Lagos — The Ac- tion Congress party in Bayelsa has commended the decision of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) to cease fire and suspend all militant activities in the region. The state secretary of the party, Mr Miriki Ebikibina, in a statement, said the decision would give room for peace and dialogue in finding a lasting solution to the crises in the region.

06/27/2008

analysis Does this week's intervention by U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama in the debate over Zimbabwe's election signal that Africa will play a more central role in the foreign policy of an Obama administration? AllAfrica intern W. Hassan Marsh looks at the prospects.

06/26/2008

Lagos — The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has said it will breach the unilateral ceasefire it declared last Sunday due to a blockage of one of its camps by men of the Joint Task Force (JTF). Following the attack on Shell Bonga Oil Field by MEND, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua last weekend directed the task force to flush out militants in the Niger Delta, a confrontation that last Tuesday allegedly claimed the lives of more than 15 militants. But MEND spokesperson Jomo Gbomo said last Tuesday night that the Nigerian military blocked the channel leading into one of its major camps with eight heavily armed gun boats in preparation for what he described as a dawn of invasion.

06/26/2008

Lagos — Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company, a subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Shell, has restarted oil production on the Bonga Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel under the protection of two Nigerian navy frigates.

06/26/2008

Lagos — WANTED Rivers warlord, Ateke Tom has reportedly foiled an attempt by some aggrieved militants to blow up another facility of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), the EA oil field in Rivers State, three days after the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger-Delta, which had declared a cease fire from midnight Tuesday, attacked the company's Bonga oil field in Bayelsa State.

06/26/2008

Leadership (Abuja) Abuja — The ranks of the militia groups involved in the bloody clash that has rocked the Bayelsa creeks and waterways was yesterday broken by men of the Joint Military Task Force (JTF), Operation Restore Hope, with the arrest of one of the militia commanders known as Jairus Profit, while three others are on the run.

06/26/2008

Leadership (Abuja) The offshore Bonga oilfield  belonging to the Royal Dutch  Shell,Nigera,  which was attacked last week by militants has resumed operation. The oil field is now up and running,Shell sources revealed yesterday.Bonga is located 120 kilometres (75 miles) offshore and has a daily output capacity of 200,000 barrels of oil and 150 million standard cubic feet of gas.

06/24/2008

Lagos — THE Federal Government has ordered heightened security for oil facilities in the Niger- Delta following an early morning attack, Thursday, on the Bonga Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel which resulted in the shut-in of 225,000 barrels per day, about 14 per cent of Nigeria's installed crude oil production capacity.

06/24/2008

Yenagoa — At least six persons have been reported killed and several others injured, in a battle between militant groups who support the peace pact signed with government of Bayelsa State and groups bent on a full scale war with the Federal Government.

06/24/2008

editorial Lagos — Time is running out on mending the broken hopes of indigenes of the Niger Delta. Governments, since independence prefer empty talks to developing the region. The result is the mixture of militancy and criminality that has taken over the area. Governments have had no answer to them. Attacks on oil facilities have gone on for years, but the notion, now wrong, was that off-shore facilities like Bonga, which daily delivered about 200,000 barrels of crude, were beyond the reach of militant groups like the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND. Last week's attack that shut down the facility denied Nigeria daily revenue of N10 billion. The loss includes losses from other fields that are out of operation over agitations from host communities, or militants.