niger delta avengers
Niger Delta Avengers

Any average Nigerian on the streets today would readily say that High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, is the leader of the Niger Delta Avengers, the militant group which has unleashed a campaign of destruction on Nigeria’s oil pipelines.

However, with NDA’s constant denial that Tompolo is part of them and with Tompolo himself loudly disowning the group in the media, associating him with them remains a matter of perception and conjecture. Even so, convincing anyone that Tompolo is not the brain behind the NDA, remains a hard-sell.

By a statement released yesterday through their Spokesperson, Mudoch Aginibo, it is obvious that NDA is still struggling to kill its association with Chief Ekpemupolo. The group wrote: “We are warning everybody for the last time to stop associating Tompolo with us. He is our enemy as the Nigerian government and those innocent boys paraded as NDA operatives are not part of us.”

The Avengers also threw a curious allegation at the Federal government by claiming that it has sent out people “to sabotage the genuine struggle of liberating the Niger Delta people.” The people being paraded by security agencies as arrested NDA members, according to the statement, are “saboteurs who take part in pipeline bombing by using some members of defunct MEND.”

Still trying to distance themselves from the suspects arrested, NDA claimed: “The NDA has not shed any blood neither has it partaken in sea piracy. Hostage taking is not our style.”

Niger Delta Avengers reiterated that they are not in dialogue with the government of President Muhammadu Buhari. “Even if we are going to dialogue,” the group wrote, “it will be in the presence of the international community. We don’t want peace of our time, we need peace with honour.”