Ahamefula Ogbu
17 August 2008
Port Harcourt — The Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC), a group comprising representatives of various militant groups in the Niger Delta has given the Joint Task Force (JTF) a 24 hour-ultimatum to explain Friday attack on its members by the task force or risk retaliatory attacks.
The Navy had claimed yesterday that it killed 12 militants who had engaged their men in gunfire exchange near Alakiri and recovered arms and ammunitions from them.
The JRC insisted the casualties were members of a peace mission of Ijaw youths who were shot by the JTF on their way to the camps of the Niger Delta Vigilante group.
JRC said it sent peace emissaries led by Tee Kaiser-Wilheim Ogoriba to meet with the Niger Delta Vigilante group but were on their way back attacked without provocation by the JTF, an action they said negated the spirit of peace which they were after.
Spokesperson of JRC, Cynthia Whyte said the attack was a clear testimony that the Federal Government did not care whether peace is achieved in the region or not.
The group vowed to mobilise its fighters if adequate explanations were not given within the stipulated time.
"This attack proves beyond all reasonable doubts that this government is incapable of defining sustainable solutions to the Ijaw and Niger Delta question.
"We condemn this attack and demand an explanation from the authorities concerned. We also demand that these explanations be conveyed through the President of the Ijaw Youth Council, Dr Chris Ekiyor.
"If this explanation is not provided within the next 24 hours, there may be retaliatory attacks across the far ends of the Niger Delta.
"Attacking a representative group of Ijaw youth leaders who are on a peace mission aimed at creating real and lasting peace is not only satanic but a grave error that may result in the creation of widows and fatherless children amongst the malnourished families of the soldiers of the Nigerian state that may be brought down in the event of a retaliatory attack against the bandit units of the Joint Task Force (JTF) who rape our women, assault our villages and loot our communities on a regular basis", the council stated.
The Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta People (MEND), in a separate statement by Gbomo Jomo denied the JTF ever attacked any militant group. He said the people killed were innocent civilians that were killed by the Navy .
"No MEND units or affiliated groups have reported such heavy losses and boats. If this is not a lie, then the victims must be unarmed civilians killed in panic the same way innocent youths riding in a boat for a burial in Bonny River were killed some weeks ago", MEND stated.
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