Niger Delta: Another militant group emerges with list of demands

A new militant group, Ultimate Warriors of Niger Delta, has emerged with its own list of demands.

The Ultimate Warriors are asking the Federal Government to allocate 60% of the oil blocs in the region to communities.

The militant group also called on the government to approve the commencement of the Delta Gas City project.

The Ultimate Warriors’ spokesman, Sibiri Taiowoh, in a statement obtained from Punch,said “We are also behind the recent pipeline bombing in the Niger Delta region and I can assure you we will not stop until the EPZ project and the Maritime University are totally completed and start operations.

“We want to be the ones to be safe guarding oil pipeline in our area so as to create more jobs for our people. We would resist any attempt to give surveillance contracts of pipeline in our backyard to foreigners. We want the pipeline jobs to be given to our indigenous people.

“We also want 60 per cent of the oil blocs to be allocated to the Niger Deltans just as the Federal Government has also allocated 80 per cent to those who are not from the oil producing area and just as 50 per cent of the resource was used to develop the non-oil area when we were producing cocoa and groundnut as main economic resources, the same 50 percent should be use to develop the Niger Delta region because we are the ones suffering the brunt of oil pollution and degradation in the region."

The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) has denied reports that it is negotiating with the Federal Government.