A renegade militant leader, Seifa Gbereke, popularly known along the Creeks and waterways of the Niger Delta Region as General Cairo was Friday arrested by the operatives of the Joint Military Task Force code named Pulo Shield for his alleged leadership of an eight-man gang of militants involved in the bomb attacks on oil facilities in the region.
General Cairo, according to his confessional tape and his confession before newsmen in Yenagoa ,was responsible for the bomb attacks on various oil installations, pipelines and trunk lines in the region including the IDU Gas Plant in Rivers State, the Agip linking facility in Tebidaba in the Southern Ijaw Area of Bayelsa, the SPDC flow station at Benesiede liking the facility to Forcadoes, a trunk line of AGIP in Tuomor in Delta State and other Well heads at Biseni close to the Tailor Creek in Bayelsa State.
Cairo, who was paraded at the Joint Military Task Force headquarters in Bayelsa, said he is 25 years old and led a team of eight in a special squad leading the fight for the inclusion of Third Phase amnesty militants into the on-going amnesty programme being implemented by the Federal Government. He said the fight for amnesty is being carried out under the aegis of the Movement for the Survival of Disarmed Youths (MOSODY).
The renegade militant described his arrest as “unfortunate” and confirmed that he was tricked by one his rusted friends in the Nigerian Army and lured to Yenagoa before he was arrested. ”Our fight is just and it was due to the fact that we were encouraged to submit our guns and we submitted over 25,000 arms and ammunitions. But they did not include us in the Amnesty,” he said.
Speaking on the arrest, the Media Coordinator of the Joint Military Task Force, Lt. Col. Oyeama Nwachukwu said the operatives of the task force have, in the last four months, been tracking the movement of the renegade militant and “He was arrested on Thursday. He was interrogated by the intelligence unit of the force. He led a group of eight and attacked various flow stations including that of Agip manifold at Azegbeni.”