NIGER DELTA REPUBLIC DECLARATION: Military storms Bayelsa
· Planners abandon plot
Troops on Monday took over strategic positions in Boro Town, Kaiama, in Kolokuma-Opokuma Local Government Area of Bayelsa State over threats by militants under the aegis of the Adaka Boro Avengers (ADA) to declare a “Niger Delta Republic.”
Before the military’s action, the militants had slated yesterday both to declare the purported republic and open its headquarters in Kaiama, the country home of the late Ijaw freedom fighter, Major Isaac Adaka Boro.
Apparently dazed by the huge presence of the soldiers and other heavily armed security agents, the planners immediately cancelled the exercise.
The plot by the Avengers to declare a Niger Delta Republic comes after members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) have long initiated the struggle for the creation of a Biafra Republic from Nigeria.
The push for Biafra Republic and Niger Delta Republic however share similar historical backgrounds.
On February 23, 1966, the late Boro declared the Niger Delta Republic under the Ijaw Volunteer Force but his ambition was truncated by federal forces after 12 days of fierce battle.
And between 1967 and 1970, the Federal Government waged a war to abort Biafra Republic announced by the late Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu.
Shocked residents of Kaiama told journalists yesterday that they started noticing mass movement of troops in their area on Saturday, adding that by Sunday, more troops had arrived the community with soldiers conducting stop-and-search operation on vehicles on the East-West Road.
One of the residents said that they became calm when none of the soldiers molested them.
Top military officers were however not forthcoming on their mission in Kaiama.
In a statement, ADA said that the exercise was because of the intervention of some prominent Nigerians from the region.
It particularly praised former President Goodluck Jonathan for moving to stop the declaration of the Republic.
In the statement signed by ‘General’ Edmos Ayayeibo, the militants ordered the Yoruba and Hausa to leave the Niger Delta region and asked their people leaving in other parts of Nigeria to return home for the ceremony.
The statement read in part: “We received calls from prominent leaders like Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, Mrs. Ankio Briggs, Chief Edwin K. Clark and especially King Alfred Diete-Spiff, calling on the freedom fighters to abort their mission to declare a Niger Delta Republic.
“We adhere to the voice of our people, because our struggle is for the Niger Delta people and not for selfish reasons. But this is not the end. More is yet to come.
“Our mission to cripple the economy of the Nigerian nation will not stop until the Nigerian government is ready to sit on a roundtable to dialogue and restructure Nigeria.”
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