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Nigerian militants intensify 'oil war' threat
AFP/File – Militants with the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta in the Niger Delta, 2008. Nigeria's …
by Aderogba Obisesan Aderogba Obisesan – Sun Jun 7, 9:25 am ET
LAGOS (AFP) – Nigeria's main armed group on Sunday intensified its threat to attack the oil industry in the coming days, warning that it will stand firm on a 72-hour ultimatum issued over the weekend.
"The ultimatum (to local and foreign oil workers) expires about midnight (Monday) ... Our focus will be the oil industry as this is an oil war," the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in an emailed statement.
Although it did not give full details on the exact nature of the attack it planned to carry out on the oil industry in the Niger Delta in the country's south, it clarified that the fight will be restricted to oil facilities.
"Hurricanes are never predictable by nature. So, we cannot predict what it will entail," said MEND in an earlier statement to AFP.
"An oil war simply means that the focus will be on oil politics and the fight will be restricted to oil infrastructure," the group explained in another email.
MEND on Saturday warned Niger Delta oil workers to leave within 72 hours to avoid an "imminent attack," a threat dismissed by the military as an "empty boast by a toothless gang."
The militants said the attack "will not discriminate on tribe, nationality or race when it sweeps across the region.
"The warning also applies to greedy individuals from oil communities tempted to carry out repair contracts on pipelines already destroyed," MEND said in its statement on Saturday.
Several of the group's warnings in the past have failed to materialise, however, and it was unclear if MEND would make good on its threat this time.
Colonel Rabe Abubakar, a spokesman for the special military unit deployed to the volatile region, dismissed the statement.
"It is nonsense and (an) empty boast by a toothless gang. We are fully prepared for them," said Abubakar, spokesman for the Joint Task Force (JTF).
"MEND is only seeking relevance. It cannot do anything. We will checkmate them if they try anything unlawful."
MEND says it is fighting for impoverished local communities in the Niger Delta region.
It has been accused of being behind a spate of kidnappings of oil workers and previous attacks against the oil industry, the theft of crude oil, extortion and the vandalism of oil installations and facilities.
MEND has several times acknowledged holding local and foreign oil workers as well as vandalising the oil facilities.
Unrest in the Niger Delta has reduced the country's daily oil output to 1.76 million barrels compared with 2.6 million barrels in January 2006.
Most of Nigeria's crude is derived from the volatile region
