Head of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, Tuesday warned that his group may be forced back into the trenches and that armed struggle would be a last resort for his group if President Goodluck Jonathan did not take action to address the issue of impoverishment of the people of the Niger Delta within one year.
"We are on sabbatical," Dokubo-Asari said during a march he led in Port Harcourt, the River State capital, Tuesday to commemorate the life of Niger Delta activist, Isaac Boro, who died in 1968 , stressing "We are giving Goodluck (Jonathan) a chance to make a difference to bring about change ... Goodluck does not have four years. He has one year."
He also called for a conference to look at whether communities in the Niger Delta should be given some type of sovereignty.
Dokubo-Asari's call is however coming as the Security Joint Task Force (JTF), otherwise known as "Operation Restore Hope" in the Niger-Delta rejected the reported decision of the backslidden self-styled 'General' John Togo-led militia to give up its armed struggle against military forces in the oil-rich region.
A statement by the security agency's spokesman, Lt-Col Timothy Antigha, Tuesday said that neither Togo, who was allegedly killed in a bloody encounter with JTF troops at the weekend, nor his Niger Delta Liberation Force (NDLF) could determine the mode of their surrender.
He noted the JTF regard members of the Togo group that abandoned the ride with the federal amnesty mid-stream to return to the creeks last year as outlaws who merely attempted to hold the country's authorities to ransom with the arms they illegally possessed.
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