JTF after us, ex-militants cry out

Posted by admin Armed Forces, Niger Delta Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

The ex-militants invited for questioning by the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) in connection with the attack on AGIP truck line in Brass, Bayelsa State have cried out over the threat to their lives.
The ex-militants said they are only agitators that wanted inclusion into the amnesty programme and have no connection with the bombing of the pipeline.

Speaking on behalf of the ex-militants, Ramsey Umokoro said there was no way they could have reported at the JTF headquarters as directed because their lives are not safe.
According to him, since the JTF released the names of those it wanted to speak with, it has launched a man-hunt on members of the Third phase amnesty, while the Department of State Security has arrested and detained three known members of the group.

He justified their agitation for inclusion into the amnesty programme, noting that the arms they submitted were well documented.
Umokoro welcomed the decision of the House of Representatives to probe the amnesty programme, as it would uncover whatever is hidden and vindicate the position of the group since they were not included in the programme.

He disclosed that their lawyers have been mandated to meet with the leadership of the JTF and explain their position to them.
Sources at the JTF have punctured their position, stating that there are evidences at the disposal of the security outfit that indicted them of complicity in the Agip bombing.
Meanwhile the Spokesman of late John Togo led Niger Delta Liberation Force (NDLF), Mark Anthony has attributed the new uprising by a new movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) to the failure of the Federal Government to disarm the NDLF soldiers, after it voluntarily surrendered.
It exonerated the amnesty office for the current insecurity in the region, adding that it is the Federal Government that should be blamed.

His statement reads in part: “It was on record that after NDLF formal surrender from our Israel barracks in the creeks of Niger Delta and decided to go non-violent. We had called on the Federal Government several times through the media to disarm NDLF and any other armed groups in Niger Delta for permanent peace in the creek as NDLF had no control on these boys who have been taught use of arms, if not, leaving the weapons in the hands of local fighters may portend security problems in the creek in future. The government ignored this warning.

Today, MEND finds avenue in some of the armed groups which government failed to disarm last year and use them to champion its course and it is a good course which NDLF had told the government that the war in Niger Delta is not over yet, whether with NDLF or no NDLF. The same government is now shifting its failure and blame on the amnesty office by calling for the probe of the institution.

When has the amnesty office become a security outfit to be held responsible for security failures in Niger Delta? The Federal Amnesty Office is purely to train former fighters and rehabilitate them with the right form of vocational training to make them useful members of the society, and the office is doing exactly its function”

-Punchwp_posts