Barely one week after snubbing an invitation to dialogue with the Nigerian government, the Niger Delta Avengers militant group appears to have made a U-turn.
The group, through its spokesperson on Monday, have stated a number of conditions that it expects the Nigerian Government to meet before it would engage in any form of dialogue.
The group is requesting that the home countries of international oil companies operating in the Niger Delta must be involved in the peace process.
It also says the sincerity of the Nigerian government is paramount and would be a major factor that would determine if its call for dialogue would be successful or not.
The group has also warned the government, oil companies and their services firms not to carry out any repairs works and suspend the buying of crude oil from the Niger Delta region pending the creation of “the right atmosphere that will engender genuine dialogue”.
“The high command of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) is using this medium to restate that there are no new items to put on the table for dialogue, we only want a genuine attitude and conducive atmosphere that will make us commit to any proposed dialogue and last peace talk.
“We want the federal government to commit members states of the multinational Oil Corporations to commit independent mediators to this proposed dialogue; we believed that it is only such environment that will engender genuine dialogue that will be aimed at setting up a framework for achieving the short, medium and long term demands of the Niger Delta to de-escalating this conflict and bring about a lasting peace.
“We are warning this government of President Muhammadu Buhari not to turn the essence of genuine peace talk and dialogue to political jamboree that is prevailing now where all manner of social media agitators and criminals have being sponsored by the job seeking corrupt political class to save faces before the government of the day.”
The group concludes, “We want a peace with honour not a peace of our time.”
