Ignore PANDEF, group tells FG

**They are faceless group, says PANDEF

TRACKING_____ASABA — THE Re- formed Niger Delta Avengers , RNDA, and a coalition of nine militant groups that ceased hostilities in 2016 have asked the Federal Government to disregard the Pan-Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, declaring that the regional body does not represent the interest of the entire people of Niger Delta.

Recall that PANDEF National Chair, a former Military Administrator of Akwa Ibom State, Air Commodore Idongesit Nkanga (retd), recently, complained that the Federal Government had halted talks with the regional body, which secured a ceasefire with militants in 2016 for almost three years.

Chairman, Board of Trustees of PANDEF and former Federal Commissioner for Information, Senator Edwin Clark, alerted last week, that given the present circumstances, it might be difficult for Niger Delta elders to intercede in future if militants break the prevailing ceasefire accord.

The dreaded Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, and other militant groups bombing oil installations in the region announced at the time that they were stopping hostilities to enable PANDEF, which waded into the matter, to hold talks with the Federal Government on their demands for development of the oil region.

Deputy National Secretary, PANDEF, Ken Robinson, dismissed RNDA as a faceless group being used by fifth columnists to undermine the region.

But leader of RNDA, a breakaway faction of NDA, self styled “Major General” Johnmark Ezonbi, in a statement, on Monday, berating PANDEF for saying that it might not mediate in future, maintained that the South-South umbrella body did not broker any ceasefire agreement between the group, it’s coalition and anybody.

RNDA noted: “PANDEF’s position is totally shameful and disgraceful coming from the organized political forum made up of old brigades, who could be better described as tools of under development and who individually or collectively never contributed anything to the development of the Niger Delta region.

“PANDEF has been disbanded in the region long before now and does not have the power or the authority to enter into any form of negotiation(s) either in the past or in the present with the federal government any more because their major aim is to promote violence and crisis in the creek of the Niger Delta.

“RNDA wants to remind members of PANDEF that President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC Federal Government cannot sit down and enter into negotiation(s) with these set of old brigades, who obviously contributed to the high level of decay of infrastructure in the country because they were part and parcel of the regime that wasted the nation’s 16 years under the PDP administration”, the group said.

“PANDEF did not contribute to the peace process that led to the ceasefire agreement that we entered with the Federal Government, but we laid down our arms and sheathe our swords to in the interest of peace and development in the region,” the group added.

Speaking, Deputy National Secretary, PANDEF, Him Ken Robinson, said: “Those are people who do not have the interest of the region at heart. They are faceless people; we do not know them.”

“PANDEF shall remain committed to the pursuit of shared interests along with promoting understanding and peaceful co-existence amongst the various ethnic nationalities of the region.

“We would implore the people of the region not to be distracted by the antics of a few misguided individuals but to unite in the efforts to foster peace, security and the sustainable development of the region, in the interest of present and future generations,” he said.