The five arrested suspected militants said to be members of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) are actually Chevron staff, Elombah.com gathered.
The affected staffers were said to be on a routine patrol of oil platforms.
The platforms were situated on Utunama Flow Station in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State when they were picked up by the Joint Task Force (JTF).
Scores of members of the JTF were deployed in the creeks to smoke out members of the dreaded group in the wake of the claim that they were responsible for the serial bombings of oil facilities.
The arrested Chevron staffers, according to IGBERETV, were eventually dragged to the 19 Battalion, Nigerian Army base at Koko, in Warri North Local Government Area of the state.
A top military source, however, denied the arrest of any member of the new militant group on Saturday.
Spokesman of Gbaramatu kingdom, Chief Godspower Gbenekama, confirmed the identities of the arrested persons.
He said those arrested were not militants as being bandied around by the military in the media.
Chief Gbenekama alleged that the military arrested the wrong persons believed to be militants.
He said the soldiers arrested the suspects even when they saw the inscriptions of Pipeline and Facilities Surveillance Programme (PFSP) and Chevron’s logo on their speedboats.
Also, sources from Chevron said those arrested and being alleged to be members of the NDA were not militants, but casual workers on the pay roll of Chevron.
Three of the workers were from Omadino, an Itsekiri village in Warri North, while the two others are from Kokodiagbene, an Ijaw community and host to Utunana flow station in Gbaramatu kingdom.
Elombah.com has earlier reported that troops have made several arrests following recent attacks on oil facilities that have hit production.
We reprted also that affected community say most of those arrested are innocent villagers.
A senior military source admtted to AFP on Monday that several arrests were made.
“We made some arrests over the weekend.
“They were picked up around scenes of recent attacks in the Niger delta,” said the source, from the joint task force involved in security in the region.
“It will be preemptive at this stage to conclude that the suspects are the militants that bombed the oil pipelines and installations until after investigation,” the source added.
Militants seeking a fairer share of revenue for locals in the oil-rich southern delta have resumed attacks on oil facilities, creating a fresh security headache for President Muhammadu Buhari.
There is growing concern about the impact of the unrest on oil production at a time when the government is facing a cash crunch because of the global slump in crude prices.
The Niger Delta Avengers group claimed responsibility for a recent attack on an offshore facility operated by US energy group Chevron and the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell.
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