allAfrica.com * Militant Group Urges JTF to Leave Egbema Kingdom Alone Vanguard (Lagos) NEWS 13 June 2008 Posted to the web 13 June 2008 By Emma Amaize Lagos DEADLY Underdogs, a militant group in Delta State yesterday, urged the Joint Task Force (JTF) to leave it and the people of Egbema kingdom alone, saying it did not do anything wrong by freely returning the weapons seized from soldiers to the JTF through the Delta Waterways Security Committee (DWSC). One of the leaders of the militant group that spoke to Vanguard also clarified that the Underdogs did not carry out a reprisal attack on soldiers after the raid on militants by the JTF, last Sunday, but the Commander of the task force, Brigadier General Nanven Rimtip who confirmed the revenge attack on his men by a militant group, said the militants were repelled. The Underdogs leader stated that the group was not happy with the continued siege on it and the Egbema people by the JTF under the guise of looking for missing armoury the group had stated when it handed over two General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMGs) and AK 47 rifles during the unfortunate incident at a Chevron location in Olero Creek that the said armory fell into the water. He explained that the soldiers who were involved in the encounter with the Underdogs could testify that the armoury actually fell into the water and wondered why the JTF was calling the Underdogs a bad name in order to hang it. According to him, the Underdogs were fighting for the political and economic emancipation of the Egbema people of Delta State and should be allowed to exist by the government and the JTF until the people were given their rights. Delta Waterways Security Committee (DWSC) had while handing over the weapons that were recovered from the Underdogs at their den to BrigadierGeneral Rimtip, some months back, told him that the boys cooperated in releasing the seized weapons to the committee, but, on the missing armory, it informed him that they swore to them that it actually fell into the water. Officials of the DWSC who went on the recovery mission stated that the militants asked them to apologize to the JTF commander for the seizure of the guns from his men, saying that it was their intention to do so, but, due to unforeseen emergency. The militant group also presented a list of political demands to the committee for onwards transmission to the state government, amongst which were complaints that there was no pipe-borne water in the area, that there is no rural health care in the area despite the claim by the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) that it was providing free medical care to people in Egbema. They also complained of alleged non-appointment of Egbema natives to political offices in the state. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2008 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quantcast