The Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Ibe Kachikwu has revealed that the government will soon start a dialogue with the Niger Delta Avengers, who has been claiming a string of attacks on oil pipelines in Rivers and Bayelsa states.
According to Kachikwu, President Muhammadu Buhari had appointed a team led by the national security advisor "to begin the process of a very intensive dialogue with those caught in the middle of this.”
"We are making contacts with everybody who is involved, the ones that we can identify, through them, the ones that we can’t identify so that there is a lot more inclusiveness in this dialogue," he said. "Our prayer is that this works so that we resort to dialogue rather than use of force," Reuters report.
Kachikwu said the military would scale back its campaign to hunt down the militants in the southern region, which produces much of Nigeria's oil output.
"Over the last two months, we have probably lost about 600,000 barrels from various attacks of militants in the area," he said.
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