The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has said leaders of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum, Chief Edwin Clark and HRH, King Alfred Diete-Spiff are using the group for financial purposes.

In a statement by its spokesman on Sunday, Jomo Gbomo, the group said it has lost confidence in the group and its leader.

It said it was “annoying working with pretenders who conspired to keep silent when Goodluck Jonathan wasted the opportunity of the region.”

 

Gbomo stated, “Our decision to abandon PANDEF stems from the commercial and political motives of the leaders and most of the members who now see the platform as a means to bounce back financially and politically. It is also as a result of the lie told by Chief Clark to State House correspondents after the PANDEF volte-face meeting with the Acting President on Thursday, August 3, 2017, where he said that MEND was part of the parley when the group was not represented.

“…Today, the East West Road they have suddenly realised that is in need of urgent repairs is a shameful deathtrap which passes alongside oil wells and sits on top of huge gas reserves. PANDEF is demanding that the road should be completed but during the six wasted years, these same members used the dilapidated road, lost loved ones there but said nothing, engaging instead on worthless pleasures, with the Abuja residence of Chief Clark as the rallying point.

“Chief Clark who had direct access to his “son,” Goodluck Jonathan, did not advise the former President to address the root issues and develop the region. Many sons and daughters who enriched themselves, including the current PANDEF leaders have no single viable industry built in the Niger Delta to show for it,” the statement added.