IT is likely that the media would not have paid any heed to the latest drool from Henry Okah, the troubled guerrilla head of the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), if he had not deposed his claims in a court of law. Okah is standing trial for levying war and sundry acts of terrorism against his country, Nigeria, in a South Gauteng High Court, South Africa. His latest sojourn in jail began on October 2, 2010, following the October 1, 2010 twin bomb blasts in Abuja.He had been in jail in Angola from 2007 to 2008, from where he moved to Jos Maximum Security Prison, Plateau State in February 2008 till July 2009.Okah, a few days ago, swore to an oath in the South African court to the effect that President Jonathan's aides were behind the bombings for which the law caught up with him. The affidavit sticks with his claim way back October 4, 2010 on Al-Jazeera that he was not a member of MEND and that the Independence Day blasts were orchestrated by the Federal Government as a launch pad to get at the North and hit back at some political figures from the region, who stood against the conferment of power on Jonathan to act as president in the absence of late President Umaru Yar'Adua.Since his arrest, Okah has been unrelenting in his efforts to drag in every Niger Delta personality, involved in the present administration into his predicaments. He said President Jonathan was his alter ego and denied that he was a member of MEND, which claimed responsibility for the Independence Day blasts. President Jonathan, he claimed only moved against him when he rebuffed the President's entreaties to him to get MEND repudiate its claim of responsibility of the blasts.Hallucination! Alice-in- Wonderland!The salient fact one cannot ignore is that MEND had openly embraced the three months amnesty deal of the President Yar'Adua administration. Within this period, all the group's fighters of consequence: Ben Ebikabowe otherwise known as Boyloaf, who commanded MEND's Bayelsa State Zone, Chief Bibopiri Ajube and Omo Tanworigha, MEND's Western Commanders, and the highly-prized Government Ekpumopolo a.k.a Tompolo of the dreaded Camp 5 in Delta State, all embraced the amnesty and laid down their arms.As a condition for embracing peace, the group stipulated an unconditional release of Okah, who was in detention, facing trial on 62 count-charges of treason, terrorism, illegal possession of firearms and arms trafficking at a Federal High Court, Jos. Despite the severity of these charges, government gave in and unconditionally released Okah in July 2009. His lawyer, Femi Falana, had announced that Okah had accepted the amnesty. Jomo Gbomo, spokesman of the organisation, also made a statement supporting Okah's decision to embrace the amnesty, citing Okah's failing health in detention. In letting Okah off the hook, Justice Mohammed Liman, the presiding judge told Okah that 'having reviewed what the Attorney General said, you have become a free man at this moment'. Question is: why did Okah accept amnesty if he was neither a militant, nor member of MEND' Why did the organisation make Okah's unconditional release from detention and the discontinuation of his lawful trial the chief conditions for its acceptance of amnesty' Why did the group issue a statement in support of Okah's decision to accept amnesty, if he actually has nothing to do with the group' It is instructive that we also do not lose sight of the fact that the peace that came to the Delta region with the amnesty programme is rather bad news and an ill development for a few criminal elements in the region who are used to a life of crime. For them, peace is not conducive to the lawlessness that had fetched them easy and illegitimate wealth, through illegal oil bunkering, high sea crude oil hijack, illegal arms importation, sales and hostage taking. This tribe of scoundrels is where Okah belongs. They made efforts to sabotage the amnesty programme and they failed. The residue then regrouped under the banner of MEND, resolving for their selfish motivations that the violence must go on. Clearly, they are not the MEND we know, and can never be. Despite all their efforts to stoke the embers of violence in the region, violence has just refused to jell in the Niger Delta since the amnesty took effect. This rump strategically waited for the country's golden jubilee anniversary to announce their disgruntlement in the fashion that has fetched them wealth and defined their means of livelihood.Investigations by Nigerian security agencies following the independence anniversary bomb blasts, pointed culpability in the direction of Okah and two accomplices, who are both facing prosecution here in Nigeria. In protest against Okah's lawful trial in South Africa, these remnants who only share his greed have carried out a handful of attacks on oil installations in Okah's Bayelsa State. Since January 1, 2012, about ten crimes have been recorded in the region, including on the high sea, one of them, off the coast of the neighbouring Benin Republic, which pushed the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) to warn ships to steer clear of the Gulf of Guinea, describing it as an emerging hot-bed for sea piracy. These criminals principally target vessels carrying petroleum products, hijacking and directing them to other ships, where the fuel is forcibly discharged and taken for sale in the black market. They have been a menace to oil tankers on the Nembe and Ogbia water ways in Southern Ijaw area of Bayelsa. This year, Okah group has visited three attacks on Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) installations in Bayelsa, including the destruction of a wellhead and one manifold on the company's trunk lines in Southern Ijaw. They also destroyed a crude oil trunk line belonging to the company in Brass Local Government Area of the state.On February 1, they shot their way into a Dutch-owned cargo vessel-' MV Breeze Clipper' and kidnapped three hostages-its Captain, Pikus Viktor, chief engineer, Melnikov Slava and crew member, Frederick Villamor, who are Russian nationals, and a Filipino respectively. They also target fishing trawlers, particularly in Somebreiro and Bathelomo Rivers in Rivers State in petty thievery. Within a week in November last year, more than five boat captains were kidnapped. In addition to a recent denigration of President Jacob Zuma of South Africa in their protest against Okah's trial in the Southern African country, the Okah MEND has also threaten severely to bomb South African investments in the country. With this background of illicit conduct by Okah and his boys, it is not difficult for Nigerians to discern that what walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, is a duck! Okah's effort to malign President Jonathan, therefore, is a labour in vain.Wellington wrote in from Port Harcourt
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