{"id":9569,"date":"2016-06-16T22:49:21","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T22:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=9569"},"modified":"2016-06-16T22:49:21","modified_gmt":"2016-06-16T22:49:21","slug":"nigeria-oil-minister-meets-tompolo-other-militant-leaders-in-delta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=9569","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria Oil Minister meets Tompolo, other militant leaders in Delta"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nigeria and the Niger Delta Avengers, the
\nmilitant group that has been attacking
\noil pipelines in the Niger Delta region, on
\nWednesda\"Ayiri\"<\/a>y agreed during a secret meeting to
\npursue dialogue to end the violence, which
\nhas reduced Nigeria’s daily oil production to
\n680,000 barrels per day.
\nThe meeting was held at the Governor’s Office
\nin Asaba, Delta State between Nigeria’s Minister of
\nState for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, with
\nrepresentatives of Niger Delta Avengers and
\nother militant groups.
\nA copy of the communique of the meeting obtained
\nby SaharaReporters shows that
\nthe meeting also had in attendance the Delta
\nState Governor, Patrick Ifeanyi
\nOkowa; an Itsekiri militant leader, Ayirimi Emami; a
\nrepresentative of Gbaramatu Kingdom,
\nMichael Johnny; and two persons representing the
\ninterest of the Niger Delta
\nAvengers: Gbeneka Godspower and Dan Ekpebide.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/code><\/p>\n

The meeting resolved
\nthat Mr. Kachikwu would visit Gbaramatu today to
\nshow good faith by the federal government to
\nreinstate the “Maritime University” project, which is
\none of the key issues in the conflict.
\nAs a result, the Minister traveled to the kingdom
\ntoday and met with various stakeholders. A source
\ntold SaharaReporters that while in the
\narea, Kachikwu also met with wanted Niger Delta
\nmilitant, Tompolo, but SaharaReporters could
\nnot verify that information. In previous
\nstatements, Tompolo had stated that he was not in
\nthe area, and he has recently been reported to be
\nabroad.
\nA source at the meeting said that from all
\nindications at the meeting the Delta State Governor
\nand Mr. Kachikwu clearly knew who the ND
\nAvengers are, and had brought in Ayiri, who is
\nan Itsekiri militant, as a way of
\nreconciling both sides. The Itsekiris are however
\nsaid to have expressed the view that
\nMr. Kachikwu’s travel to Gbaramatu without visiting
\nthe controversial EPZ zone, located just five
\nminutes away, showed he was more interested in
\npleasing Tompolo and the ND Avengers than
\nanything else.<\/p>\n


\n
\n\"NG-[C:G.Comp,B:Allbrand,Wk:2416,Dim:336X280]:Tablets\"
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mr. Kachikwu had held a series of meetings with
\nrepresentatives of the ND Avengers
\nbefore today\u2019s visit to Gbaramatu.
\nIt would also be recalled that at a meeting last
\nweek with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and
\ngovernors of the South-South States, the
\nMinister was reported as having sided with those
\ngovernors who demanded that corruption charges
\nbe dropped against politicians and militants in
\nthe Niger Delta region in exchange for peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nigeria and the Niger Delta Avengers, the militant group that has been attacking oil pipelines in the Niger Delta region, on Wednesday agreed during a secret meeting to pursue dialogue to end the violence, which has reduced Nigeria’s daily oil production to 680,000 barrels per day. The meeting was held at the Governor’s Office in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[2160,1214,2161,621,882],"class_list":["post-9569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-dan-ekpebide","tag-gbaramatu","tag-gbeneka-godspower","tag-ibe-kachikwu","tag-tompolo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Ayiri.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-2ul","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9570,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9569\/revisions\/9570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}