Biafra Nations League, BNL, has told a militant group, Niger Delta Avengers, to join the fight for the creation of Biafra instead of asking the Buhari administration for amnesty and peanuts.
BNL suggested that the recent threat to resume hostilities in the Niger Delta by the militant group was to get the Federal Government’s attention for ‘peanuts.’
The secessionist group said it was far benefitting to fight for freedom and resource control instead of asking for settlements.
Niger Delta Avengers, a militant group which wreaked havoc on the region during President Muhammadu Buhari’s first tenure, had on Saturday announced its return.
The group relatively crippled Nigeria’s economy between 2016 and 2018 by attacking oil facilities in the region, which plunged the nation into recession.
The militant group said it had launched ‘Operation Humble’ aiming at crippling the economy as it did in the past.
But in a statement signed by its Head of Operations, Henry Edet, the BNL said that most Niger Deltans now see militancy as an opportunity to get favour from the Federal Government.
The BNL said that its members will not abandon Biafra to be asking for peanuts, insisting that the struggle for the State of Biafra cannot be exchanged for anything.
According to the group, it had persuaded another militant group, the Bakassi Strike Force, to shun their activities in 2016 after some Niger Delta elders made moves to meet Buhari.
“We advised the Bakassi militants as at then to publicly define their struggle different from Niger Delta militant struggle when we noticed that some elders were trying to hijack it for political reasons.”
BNL recalled how some Niger Delta elders especially those in Rivers State and Bayelsa State led by Ijaw leader, Edwin Clark hijacked the Niger Delta course to seek oil wells in Abuja, “which after they were promised by the FG, the Avengers surrendered.”
They also said that the Bakassi Strike Force later laid down their arms after stakeholders from Cross River State pleaded for calm, adding that the issue of resettling the displaced people has not been addressed.
They advised Niger Delta youths to stop playing ethnic politics and join the fight for Biafra Republic, adding that resource control under Nigeria will not be possible.
