BUHARI INSTENSIFIES MILITARY PRESENCE IN NIGER DELTA REGION

 President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered a heightened military presence in the restive Niger Delta region to deal with a resurgence of attacks on oil and gas facilities, a day after yet another pipeline explosion.


Speaking at a meeting on Friday with Shell’s upstream head, Andrew Brown, Buhari said he had instructed the chief of naval staff to reorganise and strengthen the military Joint Task Force to deal with the militancy.

“We have to be very serious with the situation in the Niger Delta because it threatens the national economy,” Buhari said in a statement.

“I assure you that everything possible will be done to protect personnel and oil assets in the region,” he added.

“Mr. Brown had appealed for an urgent solution to rising crime and militancy in the Niger Delta,” the presidency said.

British Foreign Minster Philip Hammond warned on Saturday military action would not end a wave of attacks in the southern swamps because it did not address rising anger among residents over poverty despite sitting on much of Nigeria’s oil wealth.

The rise in attacks in Delta in the last few weeks has driven Nigerian oil output to a more than 20-year low, worsening a drain on public finances.

A group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers has claimed responsibility for several sophisticated attacks.

Nigeria had several times announced army reinforcements to the Delta but diplomats said the military has achieved little as militants were operating in small groups and hiding in the hard-to-access swamps.

Since an arrest warrant was issued for former militant leader Government Ekpemupolo, known as Tompolo, there has been several attacks on major oil pipelines in the Niger Delta.

The hits follow years of relative calm in the country’s oil-producing region after a 2009 amnesty halted a spate of attacks on oil installations and kidnappings of expatriate workers.

Following the amnesty, many former leaders enriched themselves through lucrative pipeline protection contracts under previous president Goodluck Jonathan but oil theft reached an industrial scale, Tv360 reports.

Buhari can not afford to start a conflict in the south with the military already stretched in the northeast fighting the Islamist jihadi group Boko Haram.

The oil rich delta has been a source of tension since the presidency shifted to a northern Muslim.

Ahead of the elections the militants threatened to return to the creeks should Jonathan lose.

They also threatened action if the amnesty programme that provides education and vocational training to about 30,000 former militants expired in December as Buhari suggested in his inaugural speech. It was extended this month for at least another year.

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