Dayo Benson
4 May 2008
Attacks on oil facilities in the Niger-Delta allegedly by militants fighting for 'resource control' have been narrowed down to sabotage by the chief of the defence staff, CDS, General Owoye Azazi.
"I believe it's an act of sabotage. If you want to control resources, why would you blow up those resources? So that they are not available to anybody? I believe it's an act of sabotage", the CDS said, weekend.
He was reacting to the attacks on the oil companies flow stations in the Niger Delta region, the most recent of which was against Shell's facilities. Militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, had claimed responsibility for the attack.
"I am not ruling out sabotage, that's what I am saying. People have different desires and we can't always identify them as agitation for resources or agitation for other things. There are illegal activities going on; there is illegal bunkering and all that. People are benefitting from the arms trade, people are benefitting from even having control of young men that they can use for violence", Azazi told Sunday Vanguard during an interview in Abuja.
Speaking on the demand by some militant groups in the oil rich region that the secret trial of their leader, Henry Okah, should give way for open trial, the CDS said the military should not in any way be linked with the prosecution.
"Henry Okah's trial has nothing to do with the military, it has something to do with the government, the judiciary specifically. Is the military trying him?", he stated.
According to him,."the Nigerian military is not in any way involved in the trial of Henry Okah, so I cannot make a statement on him".
On the best solution to the youth restiveness in the Niger Delta, he said, "I don't think anything can defy political solution. Like I said, politics is about dialogue and negotiation. As the saying goes, every war must end. And how does it end? It ends on the table of dialogue. So, once you are talking, you must have acceptable solution.
"Afterall, we have political authorities in all those (Niger-Delta) states. Every state has a governor and a cabinet. Is that not successful politics? It is for us to make sure that the level of violence is reduced and everybody begins to accept ... we believe things are happening, but we can reduce them to an acceptable level where we can dialogue and get some peace in the environment. It has not always been like that. Has it?".
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What is happening in the nigerdelta has benefitted politician including General Owoyi Azazi,Politician in uniform, it doesn't take all this long year making a decision to build and rebuild Abuja with the blood of the suffering masses of the nigerdelta,unemployment,mass neglect,indirect slaving in the sense that all the jobs in the Oil states are gone with Quater system to non-Nigerdeltains.Blowing up oil pipelines meant not be the solution,neither the Government under General Owoyi Azazi has Started the solution, The Army has been part of the problem collecting Bribe worth millions of Naira from the so call Militants.WHO IS FOOLING WHO.Everybody Knows the solution,Die and let Live.
It is interesting to note that the military chief, and probably for that matter, the inept government is realizing that what is happening in the country is not unlinked to sabogate. This is the effect of the corrupt polity controlled by politicians who are not only inept but think stupidly that they can get away with manipulating the truth all the time and continue to rule the people with outright and unalloyed deception. The country is fast rolling back to worse than pre 1999 era. WHERE WILL IT END?