Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said it has discarded the contact by the National Dialogue Advisory Committee in which it is asking for its indulgent and support for the planned National Conference.
The Movement made this known through a statement it issued today, said it passed a vote of no-confidence on the National Dialogue even as it said that the contact man the committee is Tony Uranta, a person it said that depicted MEND as an embarrassment to the presidency.
The statement read thus; “Ironically, this solicitation is coming from the same man who has been campaigning repeatedly that MEND seized to exist after the Niger Delta Amnesty fraud,” the statement said. It noted that its skepticism and suspicion of the so-called National Dialogue may also have to do with the antecedents and lack of integrity of Mr Tony Uranta himself.
“Some hours after we took responsibility for our symbolic October 01, 2010 twin car bomb blasts in Abuja, Mr Tony Uranta sent a text message to Mr Henry Okah, asking him to reach out to me (Jomo Gbomo) to retract our earlier claim of responsibility “as the government of Goodluck Jonathan wants to put the blame on some Northern elements” (specifically, former head of state and 2011 presidential aspirant, General Ibrahim Babangida and Mallam Nasir el Rufai, were the targets for the blame).”
The statement added ; it was in anticipation that MEND was contacted by Mr Henry Okah, that President Goodluck Jonathan confidently came on national television that night to absolve MEND from the attack.
It would be recalled that immediately after the blasts, as MEND claimed responsibility for them, Mr. Jonathan declared, instead, that it was the work of terrorists, and not MEND, which he said was not a terrorist group.
“It is erroneous to think that my people who have been agitating for good living will deliberately blow up the opportunity they have now,” he said.
MEND in its statement accused Mr. Uranta of collecting $50.000 bribe on behalf of the Save Nigeria Group which led to an embarrassing scandal at the time.
“The same people who managed to hoodwink an entire nation into believing that over 30,000 men and women in the Niger Delta, now requiring an annual training/rehabilitation budget of over 30Billion Naira, took up arms. How can the government correlate its display of less than three thousand weapons (most of which were donated by the military for the disarmament show), with more than thirty thousand (30) so-called repentant militants. Were the rest fighting with sticks?”
It noted that millions of hard working Nigerians remain unemployed, the country’s education system is going down the drain with strikes, and the country is getting increasingly full of educated derelicts while the government shares out billions of Naira monthly on miscreants, criminals and con men who claim to have been freedom fighters.
“This scam was designed by people in government such as Timi Alaibe who created ghost fighters with the connivance of those at the highest level,” it said.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) hereby passes a vote of no-confidence.
