The new militant group apart from "Niger Delta Avengers", But "Ultimate Warriors of Niger Delta", has demanded that 60 per cent of Nigeria’s oil blocks should be given to the Niger Delta region, threatening to attack oil and gas facilities if the Federal Government does not accept their terms and conditions.
The group, which spoke for the first time on Wednesday, also demanded that work at the $16bn Export Processing Zone, which is also called Delta Gas City Project, must commence in earnest.
It, however, gave the Federal Government a fourteen-day ultimatum to ensure that their demands were met in order to engender a lasting ceasefire in the region.
Spokesperson for the group, Sibiri Taiowoh, in a statement obtained by our correspondent, said if the government truly wanted peace in the region, it should award 60 per cent of the country’s oil blocks to the people of the Niger Delta.
The group also demanded for the commencement of academic activities at the Maritime University in Okerenkoko, Rivers State, which was established during the tenure of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The group threatened to shut down the facilities of leading multinationals oil companies operating in the area.
It claimed to be behind some of the recent pipeline bombings in the country.
The statement read, “We want 60 per cent of the oil blocks to be allocated to the Niger Delta just as the Federal Government allocated 80 per cent to those who are not from the oil-producing area and just as 50 per cent of the nation’s resources was used to develop the non-oil regions when we were producing cocoa and groundnut as main economic resources.
“The same 50 per cent should be used to develop the Niger Delta region because we are the ones suffering the brunt of oil pollution and degradation.
“We are behind the recent pipeline bombings in the Niger Delta region and I can assure you we will not stop until the Export Processing Zone project and the Maritime University are completed and start operations.”
