JTF Sustains Attack On Militants’ Camps

THE Joint Task Force (JTF) has vowed to rev up its onslaught against alleged reminants of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) fighters who have threatened more abduction and attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta.
This came on the heels of MEND’s claim that it had ambushed the convoy of Nigerian Army gunboats at Ayakoromo, Delta State, killing 10 soldiers and injuring 18 others.
The JTF has, however, refuted the militant group’s claim.
The JTF has also denied rumours that it was set to start an aerial bombardment of communities in the Niger Delta.
Joint Media Coordinator of the military task force, Lt. Col. Timothy Antigha, in a statement yesterday in Yenagoa, said the aerial bombardment speculation was false, stressing that the JTF had not contemplated such approach in its current onslaught against the militants.
The command, in the second day of its raids on militant camps in the Niger Delta region on Thursday, sacked about 14 militant camps across Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers states, with a haul of assault weapons recovered from the camps.
The captured camps included those operated by one Commander Obez in Rivers State, three in Bayelsa operated by one Keiti Sese, known along the creeks as Commander Nomukeme (mad man) in Foropa Community of the Southern Ijaw Local Council of Bayelsa State and another at Igbikiri in Nembe area of Bayelsa State.
Antigha said the false aerial bombardment rumour was being sponsored by renegade militants and their sympathisers, stressing that it should be disregarded.
His words: “The target of the operation is the elimination of criminal gang, their arms cache and other assets identified and confirmed as their centre of operations.”
Antigha advised traditional rulers and their subjects in the affected communities to remain calm and continue to pursue their legitimate endeavours.
He said communities where the criminals were hiding should call the JTF with a view to turning them in.
Meanwhile, the Ijaw Peoples Congress (IPC) has called on the JTF to limit its attack only to militants in Ughelli South and Burutu local councils of Delta State.
In a statement by its National President, Ekanpou Enewaridideke, the group expressed worry over the deployment of soldiers to the councils in the state, arguing that the areas “are in no way connected with the militants.”
Enewaridideke wrote: “We condemn in strong terms any resurgent militancy in the Niger Delta and will assist in any designated capacity to curb the menace of militant brigandage anywhere particularly the ongoing one.
“Let the public know that Ayakoromo is a community of intellectuals who are diametrically opposed to militancy in any form and therefore we hereby disassociate ourselves from any form of complicity or companionship with John Togo in the ongoing battle between him and JTF soldiers.
“We wish to place on record that JTF soldiers should limit their attack to only John Togo’s camp. The commandant of JTF should carry out his military operation in such a way that innocent and harmless people and communities are not affected. Already stray bullets have begun flying to Ayakoromo in invasive torrents and this must stop because Ayakoromo people are not part of the war.”
And, National chairman, African Democratic Congress (ADC), Ralph Okey Nwosu, has deplored the renewed hostilities in the Niger Delta, blaming it on those he called the “Third Force within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).”
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