Ex-Militant Chides Goodluck Jonathan Over failure to Declare Niger Delta Republic.

An Ex-militant lead­er, Israel Akpodoro, has chided the Niger Delta Avengers for “chickening out” after earlier threats to declare Niger Delta State yester­day and criticised former President Goodluck Jon­athan for not “cautioning the Avengers early enough against continuing with their nefarious activities” in the Niger Delta.

In a statement he per­sonally signed, Akpodoro described as “a ruse” the reported sus­pension of the declaration of Niger Delta State by the militants on August 1, 2016 (yesterday) following the “intervention of political leaders in the region, in­cluding former President Jonathan”, saying the truth is that the “militants having seen the handwriting on the wall” knew that their threat was an empty one and were looking for ‘cheap way’ to chicken out of their “impracticable” project.

Akpodoro, leader of the National Coalition of Niger Delta Ex-Agitators (NCNDE-A), said by their ‘shameful retreat’, the NDA and Adaka Boro Aveng­ers (ABA) have vindicat­ed NCNDE-A’s stand all along that the sponsors of the new violence in the Ni­ger Delta are well known, especially after “the lat­est revelation made by the ABA that the former Min­ister of Information, Chief Edwin Clark and other leaders were among those who called insurgents to halt their planned declara­tion of a sovereign state of Niger Delta.”

Akpodoro particularly accused the former Minis­ter of being “hands in glove with Avengers” even as “the NCNDE-A has proven to be an organisation of de­cent and honest people who say what they know.”

“We once accused some prominent leaders of being behind the Avengers and their psychosomatic de­fenders came up shouting blue murder. With the lat­est revelations from ABA mentioning the same sup­posed statesmen in clan­destine romance, as men and women of goodwill, how do we reconcile the revelations and the deni­als?” the ex-militant lead­er quipped.