PRESS RELEASE
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
NIGER DELTA LEADERS TELL TINUBU: WE KNOW WHAT IS COMING AND YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
PORT HARCOURT, May 13 — Community leaders, youth presidents, and ethnic nationality representatives from across the Niger Delta on Wednesday issued a formal and urgent warning to President Bola Tinubu that Nigeria is walking, eyes open, into the same policy disaster that produced the Niger Delta Avengers, collapsed crude oil production to 900,000 barrels per day, and sent the national economy into a tailspin less than a decade ago.
The Niger Delta Stakeholders Forum and Niger Delta Ethnic Nationalities, after a strategic meeting at the Palacio Event Centre on 63 Woji Road, GRA 2, Port Harcourt, released a communiqué demanding the immediate decentralisation of pipeline and oil and gas infrastructure surveillance across the Niger Delta states and calling for a full investigation into the management of the Presidential Amnesty Programme under its current coordinator.
Speaking at the meeting, Dr. Alaye Tari Theophilus, President of the Ijaw Youth Council Worldwide and a signatory to the communiqué, was unequivocal. “We are not here to threaten anyone. We are here because we have seen this before. We lived through it. We know exactly what the early signs look like, and every single one of those signs is present today. The President must act now, not later.”
The communiqué was signed by ten leaders representing the Ijaw, Ogoni, Ibom, Ikwerre, Isoko, Urhobo, Ndokwa, Oro-Obolo, and other nationalities across the region.
THE RECORD NIGERIA KEEPS IGNORING
Before May 2015, Nigeria’s crude oil production averaged 2.4 to 2.5 million barrels per day under a decentralised, state-by-state surveillance structure put in place during the Jonathan administration. The model was not theoretical. The results were documented and sustained.
When the Buhari administration came to power and cancelled those contracts in 2015, the structure collapsed. Stakeholders who had operated under the previous arrangement were summoned by the EFCC. Some submitted to lawful scrutiny. Others retreated into the creeks.
Those who retreated became the Niger Delta Avengers.
Production fell to approximately 900,000 barrels per day at the height of the crisis, a loss of more than 1.5 million barrels per day and billions of dollars in revenue that every Nigerian felt. What prevented the crisis from consuming the entire region was not a government policy or a military operation. It was the deliberate, coordinated action of specific leaders who chose to hold the line.
Senior High Chief Bibopere Ajube physically blocked the critical waterways linking Edo, Delta, and Ondo states, cutting off any route for the crisis to spread into the Southwest corridor. King Michael Ateke Tom held Rivers State firm. King Dokubo Asari blocked the Kalabari axis. Chief Victor Ben Ebikabowei aligned with government containment efforts at personal risk. These men drew a line and kept it. Nigeria survived because they did.
Today, every one of them is being sidelined.
A MORE DANGEROUS THREAT IS NOW BEING BUILT
The forum states that the entities currently empowered under the dominant pipeline surveillance contract are better funded, better organised, and more technologically capable than at any point in the post-amnesty history of the Niger Delta. At a National Assembly roundtable on April 8, 2026, night vision drones capable of being launched from moving vehicles were publicly displayed. No independent accountability framework governs their use. No constitutional obligation binds their operators to the Nigerian state.
The forum puts the critical questions directly to the President. If this arrangement collapses, who restrains these actors? If their interests diverge from the state’s, who stops them? If they choose to set the Niger Delta ablaze, who stands between them and the rest of Nigeria? The men who answered those questions in 2016 are the same men now being locked out of the system.
“This does not strengthen national security,” the communiqué states. “It places national security in the hands of non-state actors and exposes the Nigerian state to the risks of their discretion.”
THE AMNESTY PROGRAMME: THE SAME STORY, THE SAME VICTIMS
The pipeline surveillance crisis and the crisis inside the Presidential Amnesty Programme are not separate issues. They are the same story told twice. In both cases, the stakeholders who chose accountability over rebellion are being punished, and those who leveraged the threat of instability are being rewarded.
The forum alleges the Amnesty Programme is now being used as an instrument of targeting against stakeholders who have publicly advocated for decentralisation, subjecting them to subtle forms of pressure and exclusion rather than the inclusion and protection the programme was established to guarantee.
On the financial side, the figures speak for themselves. Ordinary beneficiaries have received a fixed monthly stipend of N65,000 since 2010, a figure that has not moved through years of punishing inflation, naira devaluation, and a cost of living that has multiplied several times over. The programme’s annual budget has reportedly grown beyond N100 billion in the same period. The forum alleges that one influential leader’s camp received payment increases exceeding 500 percent while the rest of the region remains at the 2010 rate.
The forum is calling on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission to immediately commence a thorough investigation into the utilisation of funds allocated to the Presidential Amnesty Programme since the inception of Dr. Denis Otuaro’s administration as coordinator.
“The Presidential Amnesty Programme must never be used, directly or indirectly, as a tool of vengeance, intimidation, exclusion, or political retaliation against stakeholders who chose accountability over rebellion,” the communiqué states.
FOUR DEMANDS THE PRESIDENT CANNOT IGNORE
The forum’s position on the way forward is clear and specific.
Pipeline and oil and gas infrastructure surveillance must be immediately decentralised on a state-by-state basis under a unified national framework coordinated by the Nigerian Armed Forces. Full accountability, transparency, and operational discipline must be built into the framework from the outset. The era of a single non-state actor holding unchecked authority over Nigeria’s most critical economic infrastructure must end.
A joint supervisory structure must be established without delay, bringing together security agencies, state coordinators, and recognised community leadership to provide independent oversight of all surveillance operations. Claims of operational discoveries, particularly around the Escravos axis, must be independently verified.
The Amnesty Programme must be thoroughly investigated and urgently reformed. Beneficiary stipends must be reviewed upward to reflect present economic realities. The selective allocation of resources that is destroying trust across the region must be ended. The EFCC and ICPC must be directed to act.
The leaders and communities that stood with Nigeria in 2015 and 2016, that refused to join destabilising activities and actively prevented the spread of economic sabotage, must be recognised, protected, and included in whatever security architecture replaces the current arrangement. They must not be targeted, excluded, or left behind.
THE WARNING
“The Niger Delta has seen crisis before. We know the signs. If the current trajectory is not urgently corrected, the consequences may once again be severe, not just for the Niger Delta, but for Nigeria as a whole.”
SIGNATORIES:
Dr. Alaye Tari Theophilus, President, Ijaw Youth Council Worldwide
Comrade Emmanuel Goteh Bieh, President, Ogoni Federated Youth
Lord Mammoth Knight, President, Ibom Youth Council
Chief Henry Assor, Ikwerre Youth Assembly
Comrade Joseph Etim Antai FICG, National President, Oro-Obolo Youth Assembly
Comrade Usiwo Oghene Efezino, President, Isoko Leadership Forums
Chief Chika Obielumani JP, President, Coalition of Ndokwa Youth Leaders
Hon. Kingsley Tenumah (Afere), Chairman, Warri Indigenous People’s Movement
Chief Mathias Efe Olowu, National Chairman, Odavwe R’Urhobo Group
Prince Dr. Asobi Oyemike, National Coordinator, Ndokwa Advocacy for Development and Good Governance
FOR MEDIA ENQUIRIES:
Niger Delta Stakeholders Forum
Palacio Event Centre, 63 Woji Road, GRA 2, Port Harcourt, Rivers State
Contact: Dr. Alaye Tari Theophilus
Ijaw Youth Council Worldwide
Port Harcourt, Rivers State
Comments