Militants strike major pipeline in Niger delta: official

Yenagoa (Nigeria) (AFP) - For the third time in a week, a militant group has attacked oil and gas infrastructure in Nigeria's increasingly violent oil-producing south, an official said Saturday.

The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) have been sabotaging Nigeria's oil infrastructure for months in bombings that have forced production to drop from 2.2 million barrels per day to twenty-year lows of 1.4 million barrels per day.

Early Saturday morning militants attacked the Nembe pipeline carrying crude exports.

"I am aware that there was a dynamite attack on the pipeline," Nengi James, chairman of the Nembe Oil and Gas Committee, told AFP.

The NDA appeared to claim the Saturday attack on a Twitter account bearing its name in a post that said it had blown up the "Nembe 1, 2 and 3 Brass to Bonny trunk line" at 2:15 am.

A followup post threatened "something big is about to happen."

Earlier attacks attributed to NDA this week have seen Chevron and Nigeria's state-owned oil and gas infrastructure blown up.

Continued violence could result in mass evacuations of staff that would "cripple onshore production of about one million barrels per day," Philippe de Pontent, sub-Saharan Africa analyst at political risk research firm Eurasia Group, said in a recent report.

Like other militant groups before it, the NDA wants a fairer share of oil revenues for the impoverished and polluted southern region.

The group claims that the majority of the country's oil wealth is owned by people from the country's north and has plans to realise an independent state by October 2016, according to online statements credited to NDA spokesman Mudoch Agbinibo.

In response to the sabotage -- which is devastating government revenue at a time the country is facing stagflation -- southern government officials this week urged President Muhammadu Buhari to enter a peaceful dialogue with Niger delta communities instead of using military force to restore oil production.

But on Saturday, Niger delta residents said Nigerian soldiers invaded Oporoza, a town in former militant Government "Tompolo" Ekpemupolo's stronghold of Gbaramatu Kingdom.

The Nigerian government has issued an arrest warrant for Tompolo, alleging the former leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) stole millions from the federal government after he started working as a security contractor as part of an amnesty program.

There are rumours that Tompolo has been orchestrating the NDA attacks, but the former militant has denied any collaboration.

According to Oporoza resident Raphael Gbenekama, more than seven gunboats loaded with armed soldiers invaded the community, shooting and beating up residents while arresting others.

“As I speak with you I am in the bush where I am taking refuge," Gbenekama told AFP.

"The whole community has fled and those who could not run have been rounded up and arrested, but I can tell you that we do not harbour criminals, our people are innocent," Gbenekama said.

Previous crackdowns on militant groups in the past were ineffective and the chaos in Nigeria's southern swamplands was only restored after the introduction of a costly amnesty program for the rebels.