I don’t know if the Niger Delta Avengers are a legitimate group, with genuine concern for their fellow Deltans, or whether they are a criminal gang, or a tool of the enemies of the current administration in Nigeria; and neither does anyone else.
What I know is that the Niger Delta has been severely exploited and deprived for decades, and that the people there have suffered tremendously under the yoke of multinational oil companies, and that they have tried every means imaginable to get justice. I know that the official demands of the NDA are valid and fair, and that, if the president is the good Muslim he is purported to be, he should listen to these demands and do what is necessary to reach a fair and equitable resolution. And what I know is that the NDA has activated on the ground in the Niger Delta a practical example of the strategies I have been advocating for years; and I am keenly interested to see the results of their effort.
We do not take the side of a Muslim against a Christian automatically without weighing the facts in the dispute. The conflict between the Niger Delta and the central government has been ongoing for many, many years, and continued under both Muslim and Christian administrations. It is not an issue that emerged suddenly when Muhammadu Buhari was elected. The Delta is the richest region in oil resources, but one of the poorest regions in the country. This is similar to the struggle in Aceh, Indonesia, throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.
It is possible that, if the demands of the Delta are ignored, this may become a full-fledged separatist struggle, which would ultimately be very bad for Nigeria. It is in the interests of the central government to reform its policies and reach a fair solution, granting the Delta a greater share in the revenues from the oil extracted from its ground. If they allow this conflict to become a separatist struggle, and the Delta seeks to break away from the country, the blame will not be upon the oppressed and exploited, but upon those who refused to deal justly with them.