Nigeria’s main armed militant group on Wednesday threatened to end a ceasefire by attacking the military after a gang leader was killed by soldiers the previous day.
”Our first spectacular urban attack on a military patrol will announce the end of the ceasefire,” the Movement for the Emancipation for the Niger Delta (Mend) said in an emailed statement.
Mend said the killing of Tubotamuno Angolia, popularly known as ”Boy Chiki”, by government troops on Tuesday ”is not acceptable” and that it would target every soldier in reprisal.
The military in Port Harcourt, the country’s oil capital, said it shot dead Angolia, believed to be one of the leaders of Mend in the volatile Niger Delta region. The army said he was trying to escape after he was arrested.
Mend denied any links with Angolia, but said his killing was unacceptable.
”Mend has therefore decreed today [Wednesday], January 14 2009, every soldier in uniform inside the Niger Delta region as a fair target in reprisal for these killings,” it said.
Mend declared a ceasefire on September 21 last year following a week of attacks on oil-industry targets after launching an ”oil war” it said was a response to an attack by the Nigerian army on its positions.
It warned then that it would end the ceasefire if attacked again.
For the past three years, armed groups in the oil-rich Niger Delta, which claim to be acting on behalf of the impoverished local population, have attacked oil companies and their staff. Crude production dropped to about two million barrels a day, compared to 2,6-million in 2006.
Oil and gas account for 90% of foreign-exchange earnings in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with 140-million people. — AFP
