Samuel Oyadongha
30 December 2008
The Joint Task force has arrested two prominent Bayelsans over their involvement in the Christmas day attack on the Tebidaba flow station belonging to the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) in which some lives were lost.
Though the JTF had linked the Christmas day attack to the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) which the latter had since denied but informed sources told Vanguard that the attack was actually carried out by some community youths for their selfish interest with a view to compelling the Italian oil giant to settle them for the yuletide celebrations.
Three youths were shot dead and four others captured alive after the bloody skirmished between the invading youths and the soldiers guarding the facility.
Unconfirmed report also had it that three soldiers lost their lives in the violent shoot out as the military personnel were reportedly caught unawares by the armed youths.
Although the names of the arrested alleged mastermind of the attack on the facility were not given so as not to jeopardize ongoing investigation into the daring raid but security sources told Vanguard that the arrested persons alongside the four others earlier captured during the raid on the facility have been transferred to the Joint Task Force headquarters in Warri for further interrogation by the military authorities.
Commander of the Joint Military Taskforce in the Niger Delta (JTF), Lt. Col. Nkana Efik who confirmed the development in an interview with Vanguard said the suspects were quizzed after the clash over their alleged role in the incident.
Efik said the military is with holding the names of the suspects because of the role they were said to have played in the attack and to also help in investigations.
He also confirmed that the four suspects arrested over last Saturday"s attack at the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) facility were taken to the JTF's headquarters in Warri in Delta State on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) which the military authorities had attributed the attack to has denied any involvement in the incident.
In an online statement made available to Vanguard, the spokesman of MEND Jomo Gbomo said it is still abiding by the September 2008 ceasefire.
"We are aware of hostilities between the military and some local youths after the army opened fire on the protesting youths and decided to justify their action by naming MEND as those it engaged with," MEND stated.
"The JTF is aware that if MEND were to have led that attack, the story will be different. Whenever hostilities resumes, we will take responsibility for any attack we carry out."
MEND used the opportunity to call on the international community to impress on the Nigerian government to do the right thing by releasing Henry Okah to proceed for medical treatment and seek the path of genuine peace to avoid a total collapse of the oil industry in 2009.
Meanwhile, the authorities of the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) in Bayelsa State yesterday x-rayed its activities in the state and concluded that the threats and harassment from some youths in the state has impacted negatively on its services to communities along the state waterways and creeks.
Only recently the Bayelsa State government raised a similar alarm over the activities of some youths, who specialize in the harassment of staff of federal government agencies and politicians during the yuletide period, warning that a stern measure would be put in place to check such actions next year.
The state secretary of NAPEP, Mr. Joe Chuma-Ajaegbu in a statement made available to newsmen weekend in Yenagoa said the activities of youths in the last few months have disrupted various schemes conceived by the agency for the people of the state.
Mr. Chuma-Ajaegbu, who was also harassed by the rampaging youths who invaded the state office of the agency said the 2007 action of the state government at dissolving the tripartite synergy involving NAPEP, Oceanic Bank and the state government to implement a wealth creation Micro Finance Programme also laid a negative foundation for such failures.
He said though the officials of the agency were battling with the life threatening activity of the youths, the agency embarked on a twin programme called COPE and VEDS-in Care of People, the Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme.
Mr. Chuma-Ajaegbu noted that in one of the attempts by the agency to implement the programme of empowerment, they were faced with challenges, saying, "on one of the occasion, when NAPEP staff went with the Micro Finance Institution to effect payment in Otuan community in Southern Ijaw local government area.
The cash meant for the payment to other communities was snatched by youths of Otuan community who jumped into the ocean and swam away with their loot. On two occasions, the staff of the agency escaped sea piracy by the whisker in the course of effecting payment in the remote riverine areas of the state,"
"On some other occasion, the youths held the staff to ransom as they insisted that they must pay for parking vehicles on their land from where they took speed boat to another community for assignment. These are bad signals that the state must step in to discourage.
The agency has come under the firing line of different amorphous group of people who are in no way the targeted beneficiaries of the programme."
The NAPEP Secretary advised the state government on the need to dot the landscape of the state with skill acquisition centres and handcraft centre to empower the youths, "otherwise, the state would have to contain with class of youths that never know that by the sweat of your brow and by soiling hands is how food get to the table. The state would have to contain with new class of youths."
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