New militant group, Ultimate Warriors of Niger Delta surfaces, demands allocation of 60% oil blocs to Niger Deltans

A new militant group, the Ultimate Warriors of Niger Delta have surfaced, with a demand that the Federal government allocate 60% of the nation's oil blocs to indigenes of the Niger Delta region.

In a statement signed by its spokesperson, Brig. Sibiri Taiowoh and made available to newsmen yesterday June 8th, the group said failure to meet their demands within 2 weeks will see continuous attack of oil installations in the Niger Delta region.

The militants amongst other things are demanding for the completion of the Federal Maritime University which was established by former President Goodluck Jonathan as well as the contract to secure oil pipelines in the region

“We want to be the ones to be safe guarding oil pipeline in our area so as to create more jobs for our people. We would resist any attempt to give surveillance contracts of pipeline in our backyard to foreigners. We want the pipeline jobs to be given to our indigenous people. We also want 60 per cent of the oil blocs to be allocated to the Niger Deltans just as the Federal Government has also allocated 80 per cent to those who are not from the oil producing area and just as 50 per cent of the resource was used to develop the non-oil area when we were producing cocoa and groundnut as main economic resources, the same 50 percent should be use to develop the Niger Delta region because we are the ones suffering the brunt of oil pollution and degradation in the region. We are behind the recent pipeline bombing in the Niger Delta region and I can assure you we will not stop until the EPZ project and the Maritime University are totally completed and start operations" the statement read