Nigeria: We'll Fight Fire With Fire, Ijaw Group Tells North

We'll Fight Fire With Fire, Ijaw Group Tells North Over Protest

Ijaw fighters are getting restive in the Niger Delta, following on-going wildcat protests in the North over the victory of President Goodluck Jonathan, at the Saturday presidential poll.

Co-ordinator of Ijaw Revolutionary Army (IRA), Dan Anderson, told AkanimoReports in an on-line statement yesterday that they are not seeing the uprising in the North as ''a mere nervous reaction to Jonathan's electoral victory''. According to him, ''we are reading in the unfolding drama, a pre-arranged violence''.

Arguing, the IRA spokesman said, ''if the sponsors of the violence targeted against Southerners, Christians and their property, we will be forced to embarked on a reciprocal action. We have not seen any offence committed by any church building in the North, to warrant their being burnt''.

Kinsmen of President Jonathan, said the North has shown by the current development that they do not mean well for Nigeria. ''The conduct of the presidential election is as fair, if not better than the June 12, 1993 presidential election result that was annulled by a northern military ruler.

''For decades, the North has benefitted from the oil and gas resources of the Niger Delta, leaving behind misery, mass poverty and despoiled environment for our people. We will, this time, resist their antics and respond to them, with equal measure of violence.

''If their mission is to bring down Jonathan, a symbol of new Nigeria, with massive acceptance across the country, we will use any means necessary to bring down their leaders past and present'', they said.

Meanwhile, security is being beefed up around Rivers State, with more anti-riot and anti-terrorist policemen on patrol within the Greater Port Harcourt City, in a bid to foil any reprisal attack. The police however, say they are doing ''routine'' duty.

In pockets of discussion groups in drinking joints, newspaper stands, and market places, the talk making the round is that the electorate spoke against continued northern rule.

ENDS

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