Niger Delta Avengers says members not arrested

The Niger Delta Militant group, Niger Delta Avengers, has denied reports that two of its members were arrested by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS).

The spokesman for the DSS, Tony Opuiyo, said in a statement on Friday that suspected members of the militant group, Selky Kile Torughedi and Christian Oluba aka Sensor, were arrested for different offences.


Opuiyo said Torughedi was arrested on 17th June, 2016, in Calabar, Cross River State, for planning to assassinate one M.B. Yahaya, a serving military officer. Oluba “was arrested while perfecting plans to carry out explosive attacks on critical oil and gas pipelines, including critical storage points.”

But the spokesman for NDA, Mudoch Agbinibo, described the alleged arrests as false, claiming that both Torughedi and Oluba were ‘sleeper agents’ of the Service.

“Reports from national dailies that two suspects Mr Christian Oluba alias Sensor, and Selky Kile Torughedi arrested by DSS are alleged members of Niger Delta Avengers is laughable, the fact is they are sleeper agents of the DSS sent after the Niger Delta Avengers,” said Agbinibo in a statement on Saturday.

“If DSS are denying this, let them allow the suspects to speak to the press. We (Niger Dleta Avengers) don’t have any connection with these boys. We dare the DSS to allow the boys to tell the world their side of the story.

“DSS and Nigeria Army can’t win the Niger Delta war by feeding their President with false information about situation of things in the Region. It’s all-good because as it seems the DSS is now having internal crisis with most of their sleeper agents and it a sign that God is on our side.”

Agbinibo reiterated that underdevelopment, environmental degradation, lack of infrastructure and the issue of self-determination were behind his group’s activities in the region. These are the areas and urged President Muhammadu Buhari to focus on providing solutions to them.

NDA has emerged as the most prominent militant group in the Niger Delta region in 2016 with series of attacks launched on oil installations belonging to Shell, Chevron, ENI and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).