I find the foregoing comments on this MEND article as irresponsible; highly irresponsible to all intents and purposes and I am beginning to wonder if insanity has not taken over certain individuals.
How on earth, in a nation that depends largely on imported petroleum products, could the bombing of the main petroleum products delivery facility constitute a legitimate action by MEND?
Let us imagine a scenarion here: suppose some of us live in a community where the water supply comes mainly from a Federal Government-built reservoir. Now, suppose MEND comes over to bomb it on the excuse that the Government paid them their monthly allowance on a Monday rather than the previous Friday. The question is: how many of us will not view the destruction of the only reservoir that supplies our community with water as a declaration of war?
It was even worse having to read Professor Tamuno David-West's take on this dastardly event - he simply tried to justify the attack in a very esoteric kind of way, which I find exceedingly absurd.
The fact is that there can be no justification for the bombing of the Atlas Cove Jetty. Assuming the NNPC did not have a stockpile of petroleum products and there is widespread scarcity right now, imagine the billions of Naira the economy would have lost. Imagine how many people would have died (as they usually do) from accidents involving storage of petrol in houses, sheds, etc? The blood of those people would have been on the heads of the MEND renegades and backers such as Tam David-West.
The truth is that a lot of people have started losing sympathy for the MEND as they have gone so far that the line has now become so blurred between sincere agitation and criminality. No same country would fold its arms and let criminal gangs destroy the basic infrastructure of its people, which are even more difficult to replace in view of the current unfriendly world economic climate.
For those who think that by supporting anything anti-government such as the MEND that they are proving to be friends of the struggle for justice, I say you need to get a grip. We all know that Al-Qaeda is an enemy of American interest around the world in the same way that MEND is attacking the Nigerian government's interests. Suppose Al-Qaeda suddenly wakes up tomorrow and decides to attack the American Embassy in Lagos. Suppose in the process, they also blow up most buildings on Walter Carrington Crescent and Ozumba Mbadiwe Drive, how would we feel as Nigerians (and as God-fearing human beings)?
I am sure everyone will feel a sense of national passion and view such an action as a declaration of war (and I dare say most of us would be filled with patritic rage). It is the same way I view the MEND attack on the Atlas Cove Jetty. It is a criminal act and it must be condemned as such. Terrorism anywhere in the world is bad and we must all rise up and speak against it. MEND has gradually moved from a rights agitation group to a terrorist group, in my opinion, and it must be seen as such.
I bet the children of those innocent Nigerians whose lives were cut short in the hail of MEND bullets in the wake of the Atlas Cove Jetty attack would never forgive MEND. The children (old and young) would forever view Henry Okah and his men as enemies for life and it will take the grace of God to ever forgive them. At the end of the day, those men did not attack MEND or its interests, rather, they were only doing their job by protecting a facility which functionality or otherwise has great correspondent impacts on the wellbeing of the masses.
Enough is enough! MEND must apply reason and stop the wanton destruction.
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