The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), said it has lost confidence in the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to broker peace in the Niger Delta.
In a statement on Sunday by MEND spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, the group also accused the President of blackmailing the Niger Delta region.
According to the group: “Without prejudice to the pre-2015 presidential election endorsement freely and voluntarily given to President Muhammadu Buhari on January 6, 2015, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) hereby categorically and unequivocally pass a vote of no confidence on the government of President Buhari.
“Prior to and after his reluctant meeting with the traditional rulers, opinion leaders and stakeholders of the Niger Delta region, under the auspices of Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) on November 1, 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari has been carrying on arrogantly and making controversial, prejudicial, conflicting and contradictory statements about the politics and economy of the oil-rich region”
It further alleged that the government had failed to honour concessions reached before it agreed to announce a ceasefire with militants in the region including the release of the Okah brothers and several other political detainees and prisoners of conscience under a grand deception by the current government.
“Prior to the inauguration of PANDEF, the several sessions of dialogue held between representatives of MEND, on the one hand; and those of the federal government, on the other hand; where concessions were secured for the release of the Okah Brothers and several other political detainees and prisoners of conscience was a grand deception on the part of the federal government”, it said.
It added that Buhari was trying “to truncate the on-going peace process in Nigeria, sabotage the legal options open to Henry Okah and simultaneously influence the on-going trial of Charles Okah and others, at the Federal High Court in Abuja, in favour of the Federal Government.”
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