Following the growi ng u nrest in the Niger Delta region, a new militant group has arisen and indicated its emergence with the destruction of oil facilities in the region.
A new Niger Delta militant group, Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate have been suspected to be behind the recent bombing of oil facilities belonging to the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company at Owhrode community, Udu Local Government Area of Delta State.
According to The Punch, the incident occurred at about 2am on Friday morning barely two weeks after a new militant group had threatened to blow up oil facilities in the region.
The attack happened on a day multi-ethnic stakeholders’ meeting was held at the PTI Conference Centre Effurun, to finding ways to halt attacks on oil facilities held about ten kilometres away from the venue of the meeting which was attended by Governor Ifeanyi Okowa.
Local community sources confirmed the development, saying about two pipelines operated by NPDC were affected in the incident. Both gas and crude oil pipelines were affected, our sources added.
A military source, who spoke on a condition of anonymity, confirmed the attack, adding that the vandals used dynamites and other ammunitions to blow up the pipelines.
The Niger Delta Greenland Justice Mandate said it was waging war against oil facilities in the upland area of the region over the under development of the area but it has not openly claimed responsibility for the Friday’s attack.
A technical team of NPDC and security officials have been deployed to the area to prevent the spread of crude to other communities.
President General of Owhrode community, Mr. Michael Odjo, also confirmed the development saying “We blocked all access roads in and out of the community in a bid to apprehend the suspected militants who blow-up the pipelines but couldn’t find any of them.
“The gas pipeline is the only oil facility in our area that has no surveillance workers; so I want to appealed to the management of NPDC to engage members of the host communities in securing the facility”, he added.