Date Published: 05/20/09

Militants accuse JTF of desecrating Ijaw shrines, palaces

  THE Joint Military Task Force (JTF), the special security outfit currently locked in a bloody confrontation with militants in Warri, Delta State, has been accused of desecrating Ijaw shrines and palaces of their royal fathers.

The Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC), a militia network which made this accusation in an on-line statement yesterday, claimed that the gods of Ijaw will not take it kindly to all those who took part in the acts of ''sacrilege and vandalism'' on such shrines and palaces.

Spokesperson for the JRC, Cynthia Whyte, claimed in the statement that the palace of the Agadagba of Gbaramatu Kingdom was the first to the attacked by the operatives of the JTF who also allegedly sacked school buildings, school libraries among others.

''They will not be allowed to go unpunished. It has been a long time since a southerner engaged the palace of a Northern monarch. It may happen again. Let us also warn that any soldier of the Nigerian state who breaches the rules of engagement in this campaign will be summarily executed. Any attack on unarmed and innocent village-folk will be revenged. Any attack on community people will result in an equal attack on families of soldiers in any barracks we choose to attack'', they said.

According to the militia group, ''it is laughable and ridiculous that the Nigerian army and its Lt. Col  Rabe Abubakar of the JTF Media Center has been beating their chest and giving themselves great credit for the destruction of Camp 5. Let it be known that Camp 5 had long become a tourist center and haven of sorts for various Ijaw organizations who seek to keep the peace''.

Continuing, they said, '' the attacks on Gbaramatu Kingdom represent the height of an attempt by a Northern cabal to fully sink their teeth in oil production operations in the Niger Delta. This cabal, comprising largely of serving and retired army generals, two of whom have strong ties to the wife of the ailing de facto president of the Nigerian state Umaru Yar’Adua, will no longer be given free passage through the creeks of the Niger Delta anymore.

''The Gbaramatu engagement was the culmination of an attempt by these ungrateful and uncircumcised elements to cage the rising stature of Government Ekpenkpolo, a true Ijaw freedom fighter and emancipator who has over the years been at the forefront of the delivery of peace to the people of the Niger delta and Delta state in particular.

''Government Ekpenkpolo’s resolve to stop the extortionist enterprise founded by these thieving generals remains the cause of the upheavals in the Gbaramatu Kingdom today''.

The militants are also accusing the JTF operatives of profiting from oil deals in the Niger Delta. ''Many of the soldiers have been regular visitors to Camp 5 especially when they are on a begging spree. For the army to therefore pride itself on the takeover of Camp 5 is foolish, stupid and a representation of the decay that is the Nigerian situation today'', the JRC said.