The Niger Delta Defenders Forum (NDDF), a newly formed militant group in the Niger Delta region, Thursday, condemned in strong terms the invitation extended to Niger Delta ex-warlord, High Chief Government Ekpomupolo, alias Tompolo, by the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Abuja.

The NDDF made its position known in a three-paragraph press statement it issued in Warri, Delta State, while reacting to the invitation of Tompolo by the anti-graft body on Thursday.

Spokesman of the group, General Agiligbegha Izonkuro, who signed the press statement said the invitation of Tompolo was unwarranted and unjustified. He lamented that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government was bent on creating crisis in the relatively calm Niger Delta region.

"I want to tell you with every assurance of confidence that this government has nothing to do with Tompolo. They have revoked all his security contracts with the Federal Government when Dr. Goodluck Jonathan was President. So what else do the APC government want from him?", Izonkuro queried.

He noted that the NDDF knew that the development was not unconnected with the APC's quest to take over Bayelsa State, warning that the Niger Delta would boil again if anything happened to Tompolo. "We are watching them. We are closely taking stock of everything that is going on. If it is about the election then they should forget it. The NDDF has already taken its stand. We are not going to betray the Ijaw nation on the altar of politics. We are not going work people who well known to have repeatedly betrayed the Ijaw nation. Anybody that does that is on his own.

"The position of the NDDF on the Bayelsa election is also very clear. We want the people of Southern Ijaw to come out in their numbers to massively vote and defend their votes. We will not betray our Ijaw nation to please our true enemies."

General Agiligbegha Izonkuro, however, stressed that Tompolo would not honour the EFCC invitation, describing it as a ploy to keep their leader out of circulation when he should be going about his lawful businesses in the Niger Delta.

Meanwhile, the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, has given the Federal Government a week's ultimatum to hands off its alleged plot to rig the governorship election in Bayelsa State and install the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Timipre Sylva.

Asari-Dokubo in a statement issued in Yenagoa on Thursday, accused the Federal Government and its agencies of collaborating with the INEC to rig the election. He warned that except government steers clear of the alleged complicity, ex-militants would return to the creeks to resume agitation with consequences on strategic oil installations.

He stated that in furtherance of this, the ex-militants have regrouped under a new formation known as the Reformed Ex-Agitators of the Niger Delta (REND), which he claimed he is now leading to press for a democratic process in determining the outcome of the election.

Why?

They still dey form militant groups

@OP. Source?