Militants of the Urhobo minority ethnic group blew up a natural gas pipeline in Nigeria’s Delta state in the early hours on Friday, a Nigerian official said on Saturday.
“The Urhobo militants who carried out the attack have claimed responsibility,” said Isa Ado, spokesman for the Pulo Shield taskforce, made up of members of various Nigerian security forces investigating oil theft in Nigeria’s oil-producing delta region.
Ado added that the militants were trying to draw attention to their exclusion from lucrative pipeline protection contracts with the state oil company.
In another related development, gunmen killed nine people and injured two in a shooting spree in the Nigerian town of Obrikom and the nearby village of Obor, in oil-producing Rivers state, on Friday evening, a police spokesman and witnesses revealed on Saturday.
“It was at about 7:30 p.m. yesterday. Some unknown armed men invaded the Obrikom and Obor communities … killing nine, injuring two persons,” a Rivers state police spokesman Ahmad Mohammad said. He said the house of a parliamentary opposition candidate, Vincent Ogbagu of the All Progressives Congress, was set on fire.
The restiveness in the Niger Delta which has been on-going for years over the issues of resource control, environmental degradation among other things, has been well contained by the outgoing administration of President Goodluck Jonathan who introduced a number of palliative measures to address the grievances of the people of the oil rich region. This reversal to bombing might not be unconnected to the victory of APC and General Muhammadu Buhari in the just concluded presidential election.
