The Niger Delta Avengers struck again Monday to add to Nigeria’s economic woes. The group whose destructive activities on the oil facilities in the Niger Delta Region have depleted Nigeria’s oil exports by about half of the country’s export capacity of 2.4 million barrels per day have this time went for the crude oil trunkline belonging to the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria in Batan, Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State.
It was gathered that the incident occurred at about 12.05am on Monday.
The fresh attack happened around Camp 3, few kilometres away from the spot where the militants had recently also attacked oil installations early this month.
A community leader in the community, Dickson Ogugu, confirmed the attack. It happened around 1am on Monday, he said
He lamented the effect of such attacks in the region and appealed to the militants to sheathe their swords and embrace dialogue.
He recalled that earlier in the month, militants destroyed an oil facility in Batan.
No group has claimed responsibility for the latest incident, as the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), the group at the heart of recent attacks on oil assets, has not made any comment regarding the attack.
The site of the attack has been cordoned off by security personnel
The reports further indicated that soldiers had a difficult time locating the attacked pipeline because of it remoteness in the swamp of Batan.
The sources said the militants shot sporadically for some minutes before detonating devices to blow up the pipeline.
A top military officer confirmed the attack when contacted by our correspondent, saying his men had a hard time identifying the spot as it was too remote for military personnel to easily access.
The Chairman of Batan Community, Dickson Ogugu, when contacted, confirmed the incident and appealed to the militants to halt their hostility on oil installations in the region especially within the Batan axis.
Ogugu, who lamented the spate of attacks on oil facilities within the region, urged the militants to accept the offer of dialogue that the Federal Government was offering them in the interest of peace.
He lamented that his kinsmen could no longer go for fishing which was their main occupation, thereby leading to lack and hunger among the people.
A PPMC source, who confirmed the incident to our correspondent, said that the pipeline which served the Warri refinery and Forcados had just been fixed after the militants attacked it about three weeks ago.
Although the militant group had yet to take responsibility for the attack, the industry source added that the pipeline only resumed supply of crude few days ago before being attacked again on Monday.
It added that the spill was enormous, making it hard for the technical/maintenance team deployed to the spot to curtail it.
The spokesperson for the 4th Brigade of the Nigerian Army in Benin, Edo State, Capt. Musa Maidawa, could not respond to enquiries as of the time of filing this report.
But the Public Relations Officer of the Delta State Police Command, SP Celestina Kalu, confirmed the attack.
“There was something of that nature at Camp 3 in Batan community. It happened around 0030hrs of today (Monday),” Kalu’s brief text message to our correspondent read.
President Muhammadu Buhari has consistently appealed to the militants to give his administration a chance.
In a programme on Channels Television on Sunday, Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman, said the activities of militants would affect the full implementation of the 2016 budget.
Though the militants have accused the government of not showing encouraging signs of dilogue, Adesina reiterated the commitment of the current administration to reaching a peace deal with the groups.
“The intention is to implement that budget as much as possible but then the circumstances are making it difficult because projections are not being met because of what is happening in the Niger Delta and other parts of the economy,” he had said.
“Every option is on the table. There was never a time anything was ruled out. All the options were on the table. You will recall that when some south-south leaders visited the president led by King Alfred Diete-Spiff, he also disclosed that he had encouraged the security agencies to dialogue with the militant and the leadership of that region. So, there was never a time that anything was ruled out dialogue.”