• Raises squad to impound ‘erring’ ships

It might be just a matter of time for militancy to resurface in the Niger Delta if the Biafra Nations League (BnL) makes good its threat to hijack oil vessels operating in the area and Gulf of Guinea.

The Federal Government, in 2009, proclaimed an amnesty programme for former militants leading to training of 27,358 of them in 2010 by the Foundation for Ethnic Harmony in Nigeria (FEHN), led by Mr. Allen Onyema. The programme saw to their disarmament, demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration after they had, over the years, crippled oil production with the country receipting output as low as 700,000 barrels per day (bpd).

But BnL, in a statement, yesterday, in Calabar, by its National Leader, Princewill Richards, said it had set up a special intelligence unit known as “Red Wall of Silence” to monitor oil vessels and activities in Bakassi Peninsula and the Gulf of Guinea.

Stating that the squad was unveiled on Wednesday at Ikang-Cameroun border area of Bakassi, Cross River State, Richards warned all ships transporting oil and arms within the Niger Delta and Gulf of Guinea to steer clear of the zone or have theirs vessel impounded.

He said: “We have to monitor activities at our borders, on our waterways and we are after those coming to suck us dry.

“BnL won’t allow that. The duty of our intelligence unit is to monitor, especially when they sneak in at midnight. Our self-defence volunteers are there to intercept them. We’ll only pardon transportation or importation of food items.”

The special force, according to him, “would be given some security equipment such as Walkie talkie, phones and eight-in-one emergency rescue equipment that has many functions such as security light to enable the team function at night.”

He reiterated that no vessel fetching crude from the Niger Delta would be spared, adding that operation “will start in the next two weeks and will be indefinite.”

The BnL chief stated: “We will ensure they follow our rules before passing our territory, as our intelligence team will start functioning from now.”

For quite sometime now after the voluntary pullout of the Bakassi Strike Force (BSF) in 2019 for an amnesty programme that is yet to be fully implemented by both the state and Federal Governments, the BnL has been terrorising oil companies and vessels in the peninsula, and at the same time, having confrontations with Camerounian soldiers. (The Guardian)

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