Date Published: 10/22/09

“MEND’s Aaron Team soon to meet President YarAdua”…UNDEDSS

Nigerian President, Umoru Musa YarAdua, and the distinguished team of Nigerians nominated by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, may soon commence talks with a view to definitively restoring a justice and development based peace to the beleaguered Niger Delta region, following MEND’s expression of “cautious optimism” in YarAdua’s post-amnesty intentions as revealed by Mr. President himself when he and Mr. Okah met this week in Abuja, behind closed doors, according to a press release on Thursday by the United Niger Delta Energy Development Security Strategy, UNDEDSS, the region’s coalition of all ethnic nationalities and civil society.

“UNDEDSS is happy that MEND has promised to let peace reign in the region, so as to allow President YarAdua fulfill his promise to Henry Okah, viz., that he will take sincere and committed steps to meet the aspirations of the region’s people as will be expressed when Mr. President commences talks with MEND’s Aaron Team and representatives of other relevant stakeholders in the region,” said Mr. Tony Iprinye Uranta, UNDEDSS Secretary General.

According to Mr. Uranta, “UNDEDSS will not seek to meet with Mr. President, since our baseline position still is that Mr. President must cease insulting Niger Deltans and publish the White Paper on the Report submitted to him, last year, by his Presidential Technical Committee on the Niger Delta; and that he should urgently commence to execute the said Report’s recommendations for a sustainable peace to be achieved in the region. Anyway, UNDEDSS was well represented at the meetings between Mr. President and the militants earlier this month; we are well represented in the Niger Delta Elders and Leaders Forum led by Pa Edwin Kiagbodo Clark who are dialoguing with him, and even the Aaron Team has UNDEDSS Spokesperson, Ms. Annkio Briggs, as the liaison between the grassroots and the Team.”

Commenting on allegations by a group called the Niger Delta Youths Movement, NDYM, that MEND’s Aaron Team and the UNDEDSS scribe are militants, Uranta laughed off the allegations, saying “We have never heard of these upstarts, but believe the JTF must have set up these reactionary youths; for that howler is reminiscent of the JTF’s slanderous claims that the INC, the IYC, MOSOP, Professor Okoko, Dr. Chris Ekiyor and Barrister Ledum Mittee are militants! Who dares to call a nationally respected Admiral Mike Okhai Ahigbe, one-time ‘Vice President’ of Nigeria, a militant?! Or is it recently-retired proud Izon-son, Major General Luke Kakadu Aprezi or Washington-based Professor Sabella Abidde that are militants?”

“Ordinarily, we would ignore these rantings of sour-grapes-chanting ignorant ants,” said Uranta, “but how dare they insult a passionate articulate fighter of the Ijaw/Niger Delta like our amazon, Annkio Briggs? Yes, Ms. Briggs and I are, not unlike Professor Wole Soyinka, intellectual militants, and are thus publicly recognised in relevant local, national and global power hubs.

Ms. Briggs is Nigeria-based. How could she have impacted the London-based IPA, which is a distinguished forum of reputable and erudite Niger Deltans? I have never served ANY government in my life, yet they claim I was a member of Shagari’s government. Are we expected to take serious such an obviously uninformed group, who are merely puppets of parochial politicians? And, anyway, even if these outrageous mendacities were true, how do they disqualify us from speaking from the Niger Delta?!

Or can rationally being deem Henry Okah, who has finally put the stamp-of-approval on President YarAdua’s peace process, a man of violence? We, the Professor Pat Utomi-led UNDEDSS, are not fazed by any attempts to distract us. UNDEDSS objective is to “emancipate” the Niger Delta, and we will do so, God being our strength, through every legitimate means and alliances available.”