Niger: Militants, JTF Clash Over Gen. Bello

Militants, JTF Clash Over Gen. Bello

UNREPENTANT militants on the platform of the Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC),said on Friday that they want the Commander of the Joint Task Force (JTF), a special security outfit that is containing acts of terrorism and insurgency in the Niger Delta, Sarkin Yarkin Bello, an Army General, releaved of his post for alleged unwholesome deals.

But the JTF Spokesperson, Timothy Antigha, an Army Lt. Col, in a swift reaction on telephone said those calling for the removal of Bello are ''common criminals'' and not militants. According to him, ''the real militants are in Obubra, Cross River State, undergoing trainings''.

Continuing, he dared the JRC to avail the relevant authorities with whatever evidence they have instead of splashing mud on an officer who have refused to be compromised. ''For the three years Gen. Bello has been serving as the Commander of the JTF, i can assure you that he has not collected a dime from any body'', Antigha added.

In an on-line statement to our correspondent Spokesperson for the JTF, Cynthia Whyte, said the insurgents are demanding the immediate removal of Bello as JTF Commander in the Niger Delta.

According to them, ''since his appointment as JTF Commander, Sarkin Yarkin Bello has continued to deploy the instruments of his office and the resources at his disposal to create an unbelievable extortionist and profiteering enterprise that thrives by extorting, blackmailing, intimidating and undermining legitimate businesses''.

Continuing, they added, ''protection fees are then coerced from legitimate businesses and channeled into private accounts in a manner that questions the capacity of government to secure its people and its resources.

'General Bello’s racketeering empire in the Niger Delta, now worth more than three billion naira (N3bn) was aided and abetted by key aides of former president Musa Yar’Adua.

''Bello with the endorsement of then President Yar’Adua, was responsible was the Gbaramatu genocide where men, women and children were massacred in cold blood. Family houses were razed down, women were raped, abandoned in swamps while young men were tortured and killed by blood thirty soldiers of Northern extraction''.

For the insurgents, ''the attack on Gbaramatu community was a culmination of a series of machinations driven by General Bello to extort monies from owners of vessels in the guise of ‘protection fees’.

''In the past two years, we have continued to call for a probe of Bello but our demands have fallen on deaf ears. The recent confiscation of a vessel belong to Tim Afrique Services in spite of a court order and the demand the Tim Afrique must pay fifty million naira is a clear indicator of Sarkin Yarkin Bello is and what he represents, the decay that is the Nigerian State.

''Not too long a JTF officer Colonel Victor Ezugwu was reported for involvement in Oil Bunkering and nothing was done about it. Is illegal bunkering a part of their mandate in the Niger Delta?

''If Bello is not removed immediately, we would have no choice but to visit his family with the treatment that he gave to the women and children of Gbaramatu. No one has the monopoly of murderous violence''

ENDS

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