The Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) has warned the Nigerian Army against the implications of creating another “Boko Haram insurgency” through the ongoing Operation Python Dance II in the southeast.

Since the announcement of the military in the southeast and the eventual start, there have been reports of clashes between members and supporters of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and soldiers of the Nigerian Army.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the national leader of PANDEF, Edwin Clark, called on the military to tread carefully in the operation as “the use of force against defenceless civilians has never worked in Nigeria”.

The group said although it disagrees with IPOB on its secessionist agitation, it recognises the rights of every Nigerian, including the people of the southeast.

It called on the federal government to take immediate steps to bring an end to the seeming militarisation of the region, adding that Nigerians in any part of the country have the right to peaceful agitation and protest.

“May we remind ourselves of how Boko Haram started in the Northeast. It was the extra-judicial killing of the leader of the sect, Mohammed Yusuf, in July 2009, that led Boko Haram insurgency, which we have been trying to fight and contain like a war between two countries,’’ the statement read.

“We are worried at the quick deployment of military might to suppress defenceless civilians, while some parts of the country are still being tormented by armed and marauding criminal groups.

“The Operation Python Dance I, Operation Crocodile Smile in the Niger Delta and now, Operation Python Dance II in the south-east are unhelpful strategies.”

The group urged the federal government to direct its energies to the various agitations resulting from alleged marginalisation of the people of the Igbo.

It cited the “total exclusion” of the people of the Southeast on the board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) when “some of the south-east states are heavily oil-producing”.

It also asked, “How can the government justify the fact that the south-east is totally excluded from senior positions of the Nigerian Armed Forces, the security services and the paramilitary services?

“Why will the annual budget of the federal government be so much skewed against the south-east and the south-south and heavily lopsided in favour of the north-west and the north-west?”

Omoleye Omoruyi

Omoleye Omoruyi… an apprentice web/game developer, novelist, sensitive to happenings in the world. Meet him @Lord_rickie on Twitter/Instagram