Beluchukwu Chinweuba/Agency Report
In the Niger Delta area, Nigeria’s major oil and gas basin, some rebels in the volatile oil region do not seem on the same road with President Goodluck Jonathan, who is preaching a violence-free polls. A radical group, Movement for the Liberation of the Niger Delta (MELINDA).
The group says it is unfortunate that President Jonathan does not appear to understand what is at stake in the game of political leadership over the Nigerian state.
Spokesman for MELINDA, Joshua Gowa, said in a statement, ”it is time for him (Jonathan) to see that peaceful rhetorics like ‘my ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian’ does not matter for those who have enjoyed a military background that includes coup d’etats, defence sabotage and political vandalism”.
According to them, ”we have watched with great interest, the plot by political stakeholders to wrest political power by any means possible from Jonathan. We have seen an alliance of very strange bedfellows including sons of the Niger Delta and people who have been strong beneficiaries of the agitation of the Niger Delta. ”We have seen the resources of Rivers State deployed to undermine a Presidency led by Jonathan, a son of the Niger Delta. We have also seen the corrupt earnings of a former Governor of Bayelsa State being used to oil the violent political machinery of General Muhammadu Buhari. We have seen all that”.
On January 21, 2015, This is coming following the attack of the presidential convoy of President Jonathan on January 21, by alleged political soldiers of the opposition. The president however, escaped unhurt. Warning, MELINDA said, ”any further attack on the president in any part of Northern Nigeria will lead to violence, bloodshed and destruction like never before witnessed in the history of Black Africa”.
Continuing, they said, ”it is important to note that even as we have our grudges with President Jonathan, it is sacrilegious to attack an illustrious son of the Niger Delta. We will neither forgive nor forget. ”For too long now, the peoples of the Niger Delta have been raped and overly wronged by the so-call Northern hegemony who have today found an alliance with a power hungry bloc from the South West region in their rabid quest to wrest power from a son of the Niger Delta who continues to refuse to accept the real issues at stake and still believes that humility and meekness is a virtue in 21st century Nigeria”. According to the group, ”in the next few weeks, in line with emerging and evolving realities, we will begin to do what we think is right.
Any one who is part of the plot to undermine Jonathan will be punished in what will be tagged Operation Locust Feast. At the moment, MELINDA is urging all combatants in the oil region to continue to exercise restrain in the face of alleged continued provocative persecution on Jonathan. ”Those who think that we have lost our capacity for nauseous nuisance value must be made to see that the chicken has come to roost and that push has indeed come to shove”, they said, adding that the Nigerian state might just never be the same again.