Buhari Orders Military To Crush New Niger Delta Militants

President Muhammadu Buhari has given a fresh order to the military to crack down on a new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers, which has been attacking oil installations, causing blackouts in Nigeria.


Mr President gave the directive following the group’s attack on Chevron’s platform in Warri, Delta State, on Thursday and its blowing up of pipelines linking Warri and Kaduna refineries on Friday.


Following the attack on the Okan offshore production platform on Wednesday by the militants, Chevron said it had lost about 105,000 barrels of oil production in three days.


According to Punch, the oil major said the incident had affected about 35,000 barrels per day of its own net crude production, or about 15 per cent of its output in the country.


“Approximately 35,000 bpd of Chevron’s net crude oil production in Nigeria are impacted,” AFP quoted a Chevron’s spokeswoman, Isabel Ordonez, as saying in a statement.


The General Manager, Policy, Government and Public Affairs, Chevron Nigeria Limited, Mr. Deji Haastrup, confirmed the figure.


He said, “This is a very difficult time for the country because it needs the revenue it can get from oil production. Incidents such as this have the potential to impact that. We do hope that it does not seriously affect the country.” Workers on the pipelines said before the attack, they had pumped 28,000 barrels from Escravos terminal.


“Both Warri and Kaduna refineries also got a delivery rate of 903,000 barrels just before the attacks,” the workers who spoke on condition of anonymity said.


Following the attacks, there were about 10 military air patrols over the pipelines on Saturday.


It had been difficult for fire fighters to quench the fire from the bombed pipelines. “The fire is still on and it’s going to be hard to stop it because it’s huge,” the workers said on Saturday night.


It was learnt that following the attacks, which has the potential of affect the revenue of Nigeria, Buhari had instructed the Army, Navy and Air Force to stop the activities of the militants immediately.


A presidential aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “The President gave special instruction to the military, especially to the Chief of Naval Staff, that this ugly development of vandals in the Niger Delta should end immediately.


“What they are doing is complete economic sabotage; it is economic terrorism.”